The Miracle of Evolution

[WonderingThings]

I'm not sure what "always" means in the event that time is bounded. Can you clarify?

Matter could exist before time zero, but there were no events to measure time before the time zero, so it "always" existed. This is my poor uneducated understanding of things, feel free to set me straight.

 

[FishFace]

Given the unlikelihood of our species to have come into existence, one can properly define it as a miracle, albeit one of a natural kind. The Latin word miraculum means an object of wonder, and can't someone say, whether a theist or an atheist, that our very existence is wondrous? The conception, development, and birth of a child is a natural occurrence, yet very miraculous indeed. Why can't we view all living things that same way?

So is winning the lottery miraculous? What probability does an event have to have before it is considered a miracle?
If a miracle is just something that produces wonder in the human mind, then that's fine, but there's no need for God.

 

[Chalnoth]

I'm interested in reading stuff written for the layman on this. Have any good links?

This might potentially be helpful:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/energy_gr.html

It's a piece about how energy conservation in General Relativity isn't an absolute law: it depends upon how you define energy and how you define conservation, concepts which are not necessarily well-defined in GR.

 

[Chalnoth]

Matter could exist before time zero, but there were no events to measure time before the time zero, so it "always" existed. This is my poor uneducated understanding of things, feel free to set me straight.

Well, no, if time has a boundary, then it's nonsense to even talk about anything before time. It's exactly like asking if there's anything north of the north pole: the question isn't even coherent. But we by no means know whether or not time had a beginning.

 

[Loudmouth]

Given the unlikelihood of our species to have come into existence, one can properly define it as a miracle, albeit one of a natural kind.

Every species alive right now is equally unlikely. However, the presence of species is almost inevitable once the ball was rolling.

The best analogy is playing cards. Shuffle a deck and draw five cards. The odds of drawing that hand in that order is 1 in 300 million. Every hand is a miracle. However, the odds of ending up with five cards in your hand is 1 in 1.

The Latin word miraculum means an object of wonder, and can't someone say, whether a theist or an atheist, that our very existence is wondrous? The conception, development, and birth of a child is a natural occurrence, yet very miraculous indeed. Why can't we view all living things that same way?

I do.

 

[SpyridonOCA]

We understand this process quite well. No deity is needed. The matter that we know and love condensed out of the high temperature bath that existed in our early universe, a bath that came about from the decay of the field that drove inflation. Where inflation came from we don't yet know (we don't even know much about what inflation was), but that doesn't mean that it came from nothing.

Creation and Big Bang Cosmology

Dr. William Lane Craig

I don't have enough faith to believe that something just so happened to arise from nothing, nor that the universe itself is eternal.

Though we don't yet know that much about the formation of life, it certainly didn't come out of nothing. It came out of the soup of organic molecules that existed on the early Earth (and we can be certain that they did exist on the early Earth, because we see the same molecules that would have been necessary for the formation of life on comets).

There is more to life than its raw materials. There is something unique about life, something beyond the physical.

 

[SpyridonOCA]

So is winning the lottery miraculous? What probability does an event have to have before it is considered a miracle?
If a miracle is just something that produces wonder in the human mind, then that's fine, but there's no need for God.

There are several church fathers who described the Creation as God's gradually unfolding plan from the simple to the very complex, like a child's development in the womb. It seems that Darwin just happened to provide scientific language for what the fathers already knew. The fact that you exist, that your parents procreated together, despite there being countless others they could have chosen, that one sperm out of thousands made you, that is a miracle. In the same way, it's a miracle that our species came to exist rather than not exist.

 

[SpyridonOCA]

Darwin's theory was not intended to be atheistic:
"With respect to the theological view of the question. This is always painful to me. I am bewildered. I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae [wasps] with the express intention of their [larva] feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. Not believing this, I see no necessity in the belief that the eye was expressly designed. On the other, I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. Not that this notion at all [original italics] satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope and believe what he can. Certainly I agree with you that my views are not at all necessarily atheistical. The lightning kills a man, whether a good one or bad one, owing to the excessively complex action of natural laws. A child (who may turn out an idiot) is born by the action of even more complex laws, and I can see no reason why a man, or other animals, may not have been aboriginally produced by other laws, and that all these laws may have been expressly designed by an omniscient Creator, who foresaw every future event and consequence. But the more I think the more bewildered I become; as indeed I probably have shown by this letter. Most deeply do I feel your generous kindness and interest. Yours sincerely and cordially, Charles Darwin" (Darwin to Asa Gray, [a minister] May 22, 1860)

 

[DeathMagus]

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/creation.html
I don't have enough faith to believe that something just so happened to arise from nothing, nor that the universe itself is eternal.

Is it easier to believe in an eternal, all-powerful deity than that? I'd have thought he'd be bigger and even more difficult to believe in.

 

[SpyridonOCA]

Is it easier to believe in an eternal, all-powerful deity than that? I'd have thought he'd be bigger and even more difficult to believe in.

The existence of an uncaused first cause avoids the absurdity of infinite regress.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/

 

[DeathMagus]

The existence of an uncaused first cause avoids the absurdity of infinite regress.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/

I'm sure it does. What's to say that such an uncaused first cause must be a deity, however?

 

[SpyridonOCA]

I'm sure it does. What's to say that such an uncaused first cause must be a deity, however?

Do you have an alternative proposition?

As Dr. Craig explains, the uncaused first cause was personal:
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/creation.html

 

[Nathan45]

The existence of an uncaused first cause avoids the absurdity of infinite regress.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/

which is one of the two reasons i call myself a deist and not an atheist ( the other, being the mind/body problem)...

The problem, though is that you really have no way of determining anything about the "first cause" as it's called, which makes me a marginal deist at best.

Anyway, nice thread overall, reps to you spyridon For once I feel like we're not arguing with a brick wall when we discuss the evidence for evolution.

 

[SpyridonOCA]

The problem, though is that you really have no way of determining anything about the "first cause" as it's called, which makes me a marginal deist at best.

I recommend reading Dr. Craig's article.

 

[Nathan45]

From your article

Therefore, it seems to me that, like it or not, currently accepted cosmological theory does lend tangible support to the theistic doctrine of creatio ex nihilo.

which is sortof the point of the first cause argument, but it still doesn't say anything about the first cause.

Furthermore, it isn't even necessary for the big bang to be the beginning of time or for it to even have happened, you've still got the "Why does anything exist at all?" which is the most basic form of the cosmological argument.

So you have two questions:
1) Why does anything exist? ( Cosmological problem )
2) Why do i exist? ( Mind body problem )

the best atheistic response i've seen so far is this:
that both of these can be assumed by the anthropic principle.
But that's sortof a dodge, it still doesn't explain how it's naturally possible.

Eitherway, Although i'd take a scientific answer over an unscientific one any day of the week, it seems to me that with these questions, it's proved that there are things that are totally impossible to know scientifically. I think it's a cop out to say "Science will figure it out eventually", it seems to me that the cosmological problem is fundamentally unanswerable. You can't answer the question with any finality, it is an infinite regress.

The kicker though, is that theism doesn't follow from this.
Simply the fact that not everything has or can have a scientific explanation doesn't automatically make the nearest superstition or religion valid truth. You still need to prove any particular religion on it's own merits, and it seems to me that this hasn't been nearly done.

 

[SpyridonOCA]

If you allow that God, or the supernatural exists, then what would prevent God from becoming incarnate?
http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth22.html

 

[Nathan45]

If you allow that God, or the supernatural exists, then what would prevent God from becoming incarnate?

Ockham's razor. You need to prove God ever became incarnate on it's own merits, which hasn't been done. Furthermore, it hasn't been proven that God is omnipotent or even conscious, all you really show with the cosmological argument is that some things are unanswerable with science. It seems that you need to take the rest on faith.

 

[DeathMagus]

I recommend reading Dr. Craig's article.

I'd like to also say - it's far more interesting speaking with you than many others here. I'd also like to apologize - my earlier remark sounded unintentionally patronizing.

I read Dr. Craig's article. This phrase in particular jumps out:

A changeless, mechanically operating cause would produce either an immemorial effect or none at all; but an agent endowed with free will can have an eternal determination to operate causally at a (first) moment of time and thereby to produce a temporally first effect.

This statement seems...completely unwarranted. How on earth do we know what kind of effect a changeless, mechanically operating cause would have? We've never knowingly encountered one, or even something remotely similar. We have no basis by which to make such a claim.

 

[Nathan45]

Furthermore, i've seen arguments that the resurrection can be inferred from history and it really doesn't fly. Even if you had good evidence, which you don't, extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. By and large, the most parsimonious assertion is that the resurrection was simply a hoax. Furthermore, even if you prove absolutely that Jesus rose from the dead, it's still not parsimonious to say that he's God.

So you've got the following problems:

1) The unbiased historical evidence doesn't actually point to a literal resurrection.
2) even if it did, it's still more parsimonious to say the history was falsified.
3) Even if you believe the evidence about the "tomb being empty", It's more parsimonious to say Jesus survived the crucifixion and then woke up 3 days later.
4) Even if he rose from the dead, it doesn't prove he's God or that the christian religion is correct. I think there are contemporary records of people popping back to life after being "dead" for half an hour, maybe longer.

IMO you need to approach it from a different angle than historical perspective. ( I've thought about this a lot, but i'm still not a theist ).

1) Assume the universe is somewhat deterministic ( not necessarily entirely ), and that God planned everything.
2) Religion exists, and chrisitanity is the largest and IMO the most interesting of the bunch
3) It follows from the above that since christianity exists, God planned it.

Of course, that means you have to admit that God planned out all the other religions also, but at least you have the advantage that Christianity is the biggest game in town. (Not that this bothers me much, whenever i'm in a religious mood, I have a pretty strong universalist streak. )

...

On a side note, i wonder how long till people start believing in "Theistic memetics", e.g. "Religion evolves, according to God's plan"

 

[JBJoe]

Do you have an alternative proposition?

As Dr. Craig explains, the uncaused first cause was personal:
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/creation.html

Here's the problem with his line of reasoning, and it comes fairly early:

Very simply, the causal inference is based in the metaphysical intuition that something cannot come out of absolutely nothing.

That's nice and all, BUT, the big bang doesn't posit that something came out of absolutely nothing and human intuition has been wrong many times before. He does a really big dance around the fact that time didn't exist prior to the moment of inflation, but he eventually regresses to language that implies that time did:

In the case of the universe (including any boundary points), there was not anything physically prior to the initial singularity.

Well, since there was no "prior" to the initial singularity, that statement doesn't make sense (and yes I've read his numerous regurgitations circling the "prior" means something other than time - in this case however by using "physically prior" he has dropped back in 4D space-time).

From the nature of the case involved, that cause must have transcended space and time (at least sans the universe) and therefore be uncaused, changeless, eternal, immaterial, and enormously powerful.

Nonsense. Transcending space and time does not imply "uncaused", only "uncaused by anything in our universe." It definitely doesn't imply changeless nor enormously powerful (except perhaps relative to us).

For the only way in which a temporal effect could originate from an eternal, changeless cause would seem to be if the cause is a personal agent who eternally chooses to create an effect in time.

I disagree. Since we don't know what the "cause" was, it could have been two hyper-dimensional ball bearings colliding at high hyper-dimensional velocity which spawned our universe, and the 4 dimensions we got were just the luck of the draw.