The future of evolution?

[JacksBratt]

So you have changed the wording and understand your error. This is good.

Ben Stein and the film crew of Explelled were deceitful. They lied about their reasons for the interview to Dawkins. They used deceitful editing to make as if Dawkins said something he would not. If you are sincerely interested in the truth, please google Dawkins discussing the interview. You will find it enlightening to realize how deceitful Expelled is.

It matters not as to what their reasons were, for the interview. He was asked a question and gave an answer. They were his words in one unedited statement.

Dawkins was asked how life could have come to earth if it was not formed on earth. Dawkins speculated that one way was an advanced civilization could have seeded life. What is wrong with this?

What is wrong with it is that it still gives absolutely no explanation as to where life originated... It just moves it to a previous time and place...but still a mystery... without God.

And again you make incorrect statement about what Dawkins said. Please provide quote where Dawkins said the above. Thank you.

I may have the exact words wrong. I am at work and don't have the ability to quote the video verbatim.

I used your exact logic. I just used your logic on Germ Theory instead of TOE. At least you realize that your logic is fallacious. This too is good.

Not at all. Germ theory works, outside of your straw man idea... if God created life as the bible says... you still have germs.

Without God, you have no life, no evolution no organisms. If you want to jump in "3 or 4 billion years", according to your "theory", down the road and state some biological process needs an explanation as to where life came from, you are off the mark.

You acknowledge that you were wrong in your first words regarding Dawkins statement but not second statement. Please acknowledge that were also wrong about second statement so that we know we are speaking on the same page.

Again, I will have to wait till later in the day to review the interview.

 

[Yonny Costopoulis]

It matters not as to what their reasons were, for the interview. He was asked a question and gave an answer. They were his words in one unedited statement.

If you are going to believe deceitful people, you will never discover the truth. The people who made Expelled are deceitful. The editing they used with Dawkins was deceitful.

You quote Dawkins as saying "may have". That is fine. The Loch Ness monster "may have" existed. Zeus "may have" created everything.

What is wrong with it is that it still gives absolutely no explanation as to where life originated... It just moves it to a previous time and place...but still a mystery... without God.

Why would you lie to yourself and pretend that you know something when you do not?

Dawkins gave a reasonable answer. It is possible that life was seeded here. God "may have" started everything with the Big Bang and has let natural process occur to create our universe.

I may have the exact words wrong. I am at work and don't have the ability to quote the video verbatim.

Quoting correctly is important. Earlier you quoted Dawkins as saying life "must be from". Then you changed it to "may have" come from.

That is two very different meaning.

Not at all. Germ theory works, outside of your straw man idea... if God created life as the bible says... you still have germs.

Now you are changing your argument. So again you understand that you were wrong. And again this is good. We are making progress.

Without God, you have no life, no evolution no organisms. If you want to jump in "3 or 4 billion years", according to your "theory", down the road and state some biological process needs an explanation as to where life came from, you are off the mark.

It is not my "theory". Why would you put "theory" in quotes? I suspect you are confused by the scientific usage of the term.

And I can make no sense of what you are trying to say here. I would not like the misinterpret so could you please make it more clear. Thank you.

 

[looking_for_answers_]

Sorry, nope. Stop right there.

A theory that starts with a single celled being, IMO, needs to say where it came from and how it is alive.

You cannot have one organism morphing into another one if they are not alive.

So, you have to tell me how it is alive. Even on the most basic of basic levels.

Or, it cannot do anything. It cannot eat, breath, replicate or even die.. if it isn't alive.

You cannot tell me the story of all the sketches of a brilliant artist if there is no way to show me where they got a pencil.

You cannot build a fire if you don't have a spark.

Perhaps the artist bought it at the dollar store. Maybe they were given it by a friend. Maybe they bougth it online. I'm not going to wait to ask how they did their drawing until they first tell me specifically how their pencil was made.

Perhaps the fire was lit with flintlock and steel. Or steel wool and a battery. Or a regular old match. Will not knowing the specific origin of the fire keep me from understanding that putting logs on keeps it going?

You cannot say "When we are in Paris we can do this, this and this" and when someone says.. "how are you getting to Paris"? you say "I don't know, that's not connected, but when we are there we are going to do a lot of things."

First off, sure you can. I frequently plan what I'm going to do on a vacation before settling 100% on how I'm going to get there.

Secondly, if I'm already in Paris and I see another tourist (just like we're already alive and observing life), do I absolutely need to have them explain to me where they came from and how they got there before I ask them what their plans tomorrow are?

This isn't even about who designed life or built the engine... it's about what makes the engine run.

The fact that you know that the car engine needs a designer and a manufacturer tells us all something... there was a designer and a creator... the problem you have with the very first organism...is still.... what makes it's engine run.

No one is saying that life didn't have any origin at all. The dispute is over the specific nature of that origin.

This is still a problem and you don't care.

I can promise you that I do care, as do other people who don't believe in the same God that you and I do. Just because they don't believe the same way as us doesn't mean they don't care about the question.

Until you answer "How did life begin" you have no life to change over time.

You could have a gazillion organisms of all types all over the globe... but not one is going to change... without life. It is the essential motivational factor..Nothing happens, except decay.. without life.



Even if you took the very first dogs and kept breeding dogs with shorter tails with the other dogs with shorter tails... and getting more dogs with shorter tails... they are still dogs.

Nobody argues that certain traits within a species can vary. This is micro evolution and is quite common... but....not the evolution that Darwin was speaking of. Not the evolution that makes monkeys our common ancestor.

You state in your avatar that you are a Christian... you do know that Satan lies to us and this whole evolutionary tale is just that.

I am. However, being a Christian does not prevent me from seeing that there are two separate questions at play.

God said how He did it. God said when He did it. God said how long it took.

Indeed, but this is only a convincing argument if you are already convinced that a God exists, and you are convinced that it is Yahweh specifically. If you are not convinced of both these things, you will not find the argument above convincing.

Do you think that it wasn't possible for God to do it as He told us that He did?

I never stated or implied that I believe otherwise. He's God, he can do whatever He wants

Ya, heard that before... so.. who created the aliens... you can keep going back and back and back and back.. but sooner or later... someone created something and gave it life..

Of course. I was just trying to give an example of possible origin of life answers to underly that the answer to one question does not neccesarily imply the answer to the other. Not trying to get sidetracked (though if we are getting sidetracked, christians don't seem bothered by the question "who created God?" so... if I did believe in panspermia, which I don't, I could similarly just sidestep the "who created the aliens" question.).

One of the only things that is the Hiccup with the God story is who created God.. but, as Christians, we know that He has always been.. It's not totally something to wrap our human heads around but you either believe that or you go with life from nothing and toss God out all together. I choose to believe that God has always been.



Well, other than God told us He did it a different way.


Ya... that's in "christian theology 101... life is a paradox... yep... not buying that one.

Oh, and the aliens again? Really.. and where did they get life again? Oh, maybe they were created by other aliens which were also created by other aliens and so on and so on and so on.......Are we going to go down that endless tale of time.

Again, it was just an example of a philosophical possibilty, not something I was advocating. I guess I did not make that clear enough...

OR... we could just believe Genesis... but wait.. that's too boring... right?

Nowhere have I indicated that I don't believe Genesis. But I make an effort to give people who believe differently than I do the benefit of the doubt, and do my best to understand where they're coming from and why they believe the way they do. After all, I would want them to give me and my beliefs the same respect. If I'm not willing to listen to them and assume that they are intelligent, rational people, then I can't expect them to listen to me either. I believe there's a proverb about "doing unto others" that would apply here.

OR, I've already spent too much time on this post...explained this too many times and too many ways...

Start with life... you haven't got it, you cannot create it, you need it. God gave it... end of story...

The rest of the how stuff, like where DNA came from, protein, enzymes, the ability to eat, breath, replicate. Why it change to needing male and female.. how the male of each species mates perfectly with the female of each species but must have morphed separately...... and the list keeps going on an on....... ALL just get more ridiculously impossible.

I'll stick with "God could do it like He said...God is truth... so.... He did it like He said."

Why go looking for some other explanation?

Nowhere have I indicated that I am. I have just been trying to explain why someone who doesn't believe in the Christian God would consider the two questions to be intricately linked, and why even if you believe in Yahweh, they technically still aren't. It's would be more accurate to say that your belief in Genesis informs your answer to the second question.

Also, this is literally a philosophy forum. If you're not willing to have your own preconcieved notions challenged and maturely debate beliefs with people who disagree with you, why on earth would you go to a philosophy forum?

 

[DreadCthulhu]

Ever hear of Akum's Razor....

I believe you mean Occam's razor? And evolution is actually the simpler explanation. Also, monkey's were not our ancestor, we evolved alongside monkey's from a common ancestor.

 

[JacksBratt]

I believe you mean Occam's razor? And evolution is actually the simpler explanation. Also, monkey's were not our ancestor, we evolved alongside monkey's from a common ancestor.

You're absolutely right... it's Occam's razor.


However, if you are a Christian, as you state in your avatar, do you believe that the bible is the word of God?

If yes:
The Bible is simple enough to be read by a child, and understood while it's truth is unchanged.

Theologians can dig through layers and the more they dig, the more amazing it becomes when you consider the complexities of the working of God's hand in the writing of it.

It is those educated by academia that are force fed the musings, assumptions, extrapolations, speculations and pondering of mere men, who are for the most part... atheists.

Exodus 20:11 King James Version (KJV)

11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Like I said, the Bible is pretty simple. A child can read it and understand it.

It is adults that search and dissect and twist and spin, all in order to fit their own finite concepts. These "educated" that I spoke of before, hold their own concepts above those that are words of the Creator Himself.

So, let's dissect this a bit......

Verse 1 of this chapter states:

Exodus 20:1 King James Version (KJV)

20 And God spake all these words, saying,

Are we clear, then, that God is speaking these words. Nothing indicates that the speaker changes to anyone else.

Next:

Verse 19, the people don't want God to speak anymore. In verse 20 Moses begins to speak.

19 And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.

20 And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.

Just to confirm... we see this:

Deuteronomy 9:10 King James Version (KJV)

10 And the Lord delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the Lord spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.

This is Moses, talking to the people, about the event of Exodus 20. Notice... if you will... not only did God speak those words but wrote them Himself.

So, I ask you ..... If you are a Christian and you believe that the Bible is the inspired Words of God Himself.... How do you get around the fact that God Himself wrote with His own fingers, in a tablet of stone, that

"in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day" ?

If you don't believe this and you can find a way around it due the fact that it doesn't fit the observations of men... or ... Science: defn/

noun: science
the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

Then, what gives you the right to tell non believers that other scriptures are true????

Read the ones I have given, below, as a few examples of the many, that totally annihilate anything that could be considered scientifically sound... yet you base your salvation on them and the story behind them.

Many people stay away from churches. Their excuse..."there are too many hypocrites in church".

What do you call it when someone says that one part of the bible is wrong because it doesn't line up with science, while the other part of the bible that also doesn't line up with science, is absolutely fact and our eternal life depends on it?

Your testimony is worthless. In a court, you would be ripped apart in a cross examination and your words would no longer be credible.



Matthew 14:25-26 King James Version (KJV)

25 And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.
26 And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear.


Matthew 14:19-20 King James Version (KJV)
19 And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.
20 And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.

John 20:26-27 King James Version (KJV)
26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.
27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.

 

[JacksBratt]

I believe you mean Occam's razor? And evolution is actually the simpler explanation. Also, monkey's were not our ancestor, we evolved alongside monkey's from a common ancestor.

One more quick note on this.... Evolution, actually, is a religion that requires more faith than Creation and the belief in the creator.

This is due to the fact that not only do they have no "life" to start with but they have to deal with an insurmountable odds of, somehow, getting all the proteins, enzymes, cell components and most of all... DNA together in order for this elusive "life" to begin.

More and more, people.. scientists and not, are starting to understand that evolution is not the answer as to how we got here.

Reluctant as they are, to keep God out of it, they will find a third and final explanation...

Richard Dawkins already has eluded to it in some of his interviews.... it's simple.. pass the whole creation and beginning of life down another rabbit hole and explain it all away by earth being "seeded" by some other more advanced civilization.

Hence the whole aliens coming, and more and more UFO sightings .. discloser of governments working with alien entities etc, etc, etc.....

Which, still, does not explain where these life forms came from in the first place.. but it passes the buck and takes the heat off of the atheistic camp who are desperately trying to keep a designer out of the picture.

 

[stevevw]

Tech is going to accelerate the artificial change, more and more drastically, as AI and ML develop, and as we increase our knowledge of the brain and the ability to interface with and enchance it. This will all allow us to more quickly understand and change genetics as well.

Think about the changes over the last 50 years (like the internet...). Now imagine the same amount of change in less than half that amount of time.

Having so much information and technology also brings the power to change things. Now that we are able to manipulate genetics and the micro world we are at a point of playing God. Though this may bring some great innovations I think it can also bring with it some dangerous consequences, maybe not felt immediately. For me, nature is meant to play out on its own accord and meddling with it has consequences. When applied to evolution humans ability to control nature is an artificial addition which I don't think belongs so it will upset the equilibrium of things. So maybe it is not just about evolution but also about humans sinful nature and the effect sin has on the world. If humans became more intelligent through evolution as a survival advantage then maybe that will become a disadvantage if we continue to destroy ours and other species environments playing God.

 

[looking_for_answers_]

Having so much information and technology also brings the power to change things. Now that we are able to manipulate genetics and the micro world we are at a point of playing God. Though this may bring some great innovations I think it can also bring with it some dangerous consequences, maybe not felt immediately. For me, nature is meant to play out on its own accord and meddling with it has consequences. When applied to evolution humans ability to control nature is an artificial addition which I don't think belongs so it will upset the equilibrium of things. So maybe it is not just about evolution but also about humans sinful nature and the effect sin has on the world. If humans became more intelligent through evolution as a survival advantage then maybe that will become a disadvantage if we continue to destroy ours and other species environments playing God.

Indeed. Which is why I find traditional Christianity and concepts like transhumanism/singularities/etc. to be... challenging to reconcile. We might not really even be able to consider whatever comes next as "human". What we consider "humans" right now will probably no longer be the dominant specie, regardless of whether our competition be enchanced humans, digital humans, or some other consciousness not even related to humanity. I've been trying to find good writing/teaching on this from a Christian perspective, as the odds are that I (and probably you) will be living through it, but finding any such thing without delving into crazy-land is a tough since the intersection of being a Christian and even being aware of the phrase "transhumanism" is pretty rare.

 

[stevevw]

Indeed. Which is why I find traditional Christianity and concepts like transhumanism/singularities/etc. to be... challenging to reconcile. We might not really even be able to consider whatever comes next as "human". What we consider "humans" right now will probably no longer be the dominant species, regardless of whether our competition be enchanced humans, digital humans, or some other consciousness not even related to humanity. I've been trying to find good writing/teaching on this from a Christian perspective, as the odds are that I (and probably you) will be living through it, but finding any such thing without delving into crazy-land is a tough since the intersection of being a Christian and even being aware of the phrase "transhumanism" is pretty rare.

That is why I believe that the state of humanity is not just about evolution but also about spirituality and our sinful nature. When it comes to intelligence evolution has given examples of how the human species has risen above all other species because their intelligence has given them an advantage for survival. Scientists give examples of tool making ability, farming, shelter building, hunting etc. This was all part of human survival and intelligence is seen as a natural progression of evolution and survival that has produced a superior species.

Yet at the same time, the human species seems to be working against their survival by destroying the environment, treating each other unkindly and waring against each other. If evolution is all about survival then you would think that humans would use their intelligence to do everything they can to survive. Human intelligence allows us to go beyond the basic driving force of evolution in natural selection because we can manipulate our environment and have a say in what happens. IT also puts us in a position where we understand the implications of what can happen if we do not treat each other and the planet good by threatening our future to reproduce and survive. This is being recognised by scientists with the non-adaptive and developmental influences that allow species to change.

So for me, there is another dimension to humans that is not being acknowledged that influences us in how we behave which is our sinful nature. It is one thing to be intelligent and another to use that intelligence for the good of others and the planet. It seems that we have a history of doing the wrong thing and then realizing this and trying to repair the damage. This is being seen now with how we have knowingly destroyed our planet and are now beginning to react to save it with new green technology. But we could have avoided all this if we had done the right thing in the first place.

So just understanding humans based on evolution is only part of the picture and the true driving force that will determine our survivability is cultivating our spiritual side which will not only allow us to survive on this planet by treating the planet and each other better but also allow our souls to survive beyond this planet.

 

[Jeff S]

We are evolving into a species that is capable of killing ourselves with just one push of a red button. and doing a darn good job at it also.

We are also evolving into homo-lyingtoourselves and believe what we say when we say it.