Why are there still apes?

Gottservant · Oct 2, 2020

Something that you might baulk at, at first, is the idea of checking "the Evolution".

If you checked "the Evolution" for its creed, over time, you might find a selection pressure leaving, before it was completely gone.

If a selection pressure, just up and left all of a sudden, you would be subject to change, you didn't understand the meaning of?

In this way, Evolution would be a lot like Buddhism, if you think about it: the credulity of the enterprise, hinging on how well it is practiced, in its current context.

Shemjaza · Oct 2, 2020

Gottservant said:
So you are a judge (of species)?

Apes are the most human-like of all animals.

Behaviorally, intellectually, physical structure and genetically.

If you disagree, can you explain why?

Gottservant said:
You have "automation", to back you up??

That doesn't make sense.

What I meant was that while I feel that it seems more likely for apes to become technologically intelligent like us... I do not think it is any way guaranteed.

Gottservant said:
So it is "fertility", that is your stock in trade???

Fertility is a common definition of species. But I was giving examples of where it isn't reliable.

Gottservant said:
I just mean you are adding and subtracting from your definition of humanity, as seems to suit you. Whereas, if it actually meant something the act of committing to it would result in a number of changes (not merely the most recent convenience). The idea that you just pop in and out of a related adaptation (related to the species), only becomes more and more incredulous.

There are different uses of the word humanity. It depends on context.

Human is not a precise scientific term.

It could be used to refer to our specific species: Homo sapiens

Or it could be used to refer to a number of hominid species.
For example one could say: "There were once five kinds of human." and be referring to the species: Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalis, Denisover hominin, Homo erectus and Homo florensis

Gottservant said:
...that is, unless you can show some sort of consensus, intra-specieally. The accent to Evolution's product, is different from the consensus, on which the adaptation is thought to be based.

This doesn't make sense, can you re phrase this and explain your terms.

Gottservant said:
If I said "I have a car", you would not assume "every car I see, must be his", you would say "show me the key" - the key would be evidence of the right to the road, on which the travel (in that car) is based.

If you were called before the judge, for speeding in a car that didn't need a key, your primary defence would be "I didn't know there were rules, for driving this car, I just assumed it didn't matter" - you would still be punished, but the penalty would be less.

I don't understand the point of this analogy.

Gottservant said:
What we have, with Evolution, is a bunch of people saying "I didn't see a key to the population, I just assumed there were no rules - when evidence turned up that there was confusion about which population was most responsible, I just assumed it wouldn't matter". It does matter. Things done believing you are a descendent of an ape, are more reprehensible, not less - because you are ignoring the culpability of yourself, but also those with you.

Why is it more reprehensible? Especially since people of many different beliefs (including Christians) accept that humans are descended from basal primates.

Gottservant said:
I for one, want to be known - however punitively - for refusing to identify with a people, refusing to identify with Jesus, specifically His Humanity. It simply cannot stand, that I saw Christ's humanity on the cross, and did not see, punishment for human sins meted out to Him. We are all equally culpable.

Maybe, just maybe, the good we are doing focussing on science, will turn out to be better than licking our wounds, at the foot of the cross - but Christians do not lick their wounds. The whole premise of scapegoating the human race, in the name of nature, is not Christ's will for the humanity He created.

The truth is, Jesus would die again, if it meant you would be saved from believing a scapegoat - the problem is, we know from the Father, that you not confessing your sins means that it wouldn't make a difference.

If you want to question anything, question "why does he have a problem with scapegoating, if he can just repent himself?" - which is a fool's question, granted, but that is how dire the folly is, if left unchecked.

I don't see how this is relevant to the question of common decent and evolution.

Gottservant · Oct 2, 2020

Shemjaza said:
Apes are the most human-like of all animals.

[...]
Why is it more reprehensible? Especially since people of many different beliefs (including Christians) accept that humans are descended from basal primates.

I don't see how this is relevant to the question of common decent and evolution.

I'm going to have to think about your post. You raise a lot of questions. I don't want to make you look like you are somehow not the expert, you want to tell everyone else that you were.

Granted, I introduced a concept that is foreign to Evolution, that a species has to agree with its inner-working - to effect the change that is innate to it: but I think, if I can communicate it properly, you will see that an interpretative aspect to your theory, would mean it survived more.

Let me read your post again, and we'll see if recognition of the words that are important to Jesus (what you agree to as a Christian), plays into the importance you would like for "Evolution" (what you say you agree to as an Evolutionist).

Shemjaza · Oct 2, 2020

Gottservant said:
Something that you might baulk at, at first, is the idea of checking "the Evolution".

Not a sensible sentence.

Gottservant said:
If you checked "the Evolution" for its creed, over time, you might find a selection pressure leaving, before it was completely gone.

Evolution doesn't have a creed. It's a physical process... or a scientific theory about that physical process.

Gottservant said:
If a selection pressure, just up and left all of a sudden, you would be subject to change, you didn't understand the meaning of?

Understanding is irrelevant to evolution or selection pressures.

Gottservant said:
In this way, Evolution would be a lot like Buddhism, if you think about it: the credulity of the enterprise, hinging on how well it is practiced, in its current context.

Buddhism is a religion and/or a philosophy... it's belief based.
Evolution is, as I said, a physical process or a scientific theory about that physical process.

They are not alike.

AV1611VET · Oct 2, 2020

Hans Blaster said:
I'm personally sick of the thought-killing shrug of "god works in mysterious ways".

You want us to lie and say God always works in detectable ways?

FrumiousBandersnatch · Oct 2, 2020

AV1611VET said:
Are you bragging, or complaining?

Neither; it was an observation.

AV1611VET · Oct 2, 2020

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
Oh, GWIMW (God Works In Mysterious Ways) again... That often comes up as a catch-all 'explanation' for contradictions, absurdities, irrationalities, etc.

AV1611VET said:
Are you bragging, or complaining?

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
Neither; it was an observation.

Sounds like you were complaining to me.

Here's another observation:

"It didn't happen" often comes up as a catch-all 'explanation' for unbelief, miracles, paradoxes, etc.

FrumiousBandersnatch · Oct 2, 2020

Gottservant said:
So you're saying "if we were wiped out (by a 'meteor', say), the remainder of the apes, would have sufficient selection pressure, to become human again"?

It's seems unlikely - times have changed. Contemporary primate species have been evolving for as long as we have - we're all different from our earliest primate ancestors.

Not only have environments and the selection pressures they impose changed significantly over the last two million years or more, but the ancestral species on which those selection pressures acted is not around any more. To suppose that a contemporary primate would follow the same route even with similar selection pressures is highly speculative.

FrumiousBandersnatch · Oct 2, 2020

AV1611VET said:
Sounds like you were complaining to me.

Glad to have corrected your misinterpretation.

"It didn't happen" often comes up as a catch-all 'explanation' for unbelief, miracles, paradoxes, etc.

I'd rate that 'occasional' rather than 'often'. I think "There's no evidence it happened", with its corollary, "So there's no good reason to think it did happen", comes up far more often.

AV1611VET · Oct 2, 2020

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
Oh, GWIMW (God Works In Mysterious Ways) again... That often comes up as a catch-all 'explanation' for contradictions, absurdities, irrationalities, etc.

The sun often comes up too.

What's your point, if you're just making an observation?

Hans Blaster · Oct 2, 2020

AV1611VET said:
You want us to lie and say God always works in detectable ways?

I'd like your god to be detectable before I give it any credence.

AV1611VET · Oct 2, 2020

Hans Blaster said:
I'd like your god to be detectable before I give it any credence.

This short video is awesome:

Science Can't Detect God

Speedwell · Oct 2, 2020

AV1611VET said:
This short video is awesome:

Science Can't Detect God

That shoe also fits those IDists and other creationists who insist that science can detect God.

AV1611VET · Oct 2, 2020

Speedwell said:
That shoe also fits those IDists and other creationists who insist that science can detect God.

No argument there!

FrumiousBandersnatch · Oct 2, 2020

AV1611VET said:
The sun often comes up too.

What's your point, if you're just making an observation?

The point should be pretty clear - it's a case of theists having it both ways; they invoke an omnipotent, omniscient entity as the ultimate explanation for everything, whose nature and commands they claim to know, who supposedly talks to them, and with whom they have a 'personal relationship', yet whenever reality or logic throw up the inevitable contradictions, absurdities, irrationalities, etc. in their claims about it, this entity is said to be 'unknowable' and 'beyond our understanding', 'moves in mysterious ways'.

I think it's worth pointing out such inconsistencies when they occur. I can understand that you might not think so.

FrumiousBandersnatch · Oct 2, 2020

AV1611VET said:
This short video is awesome:

Science Can't Detect God

Saying that God is not part of physical reality is fair enough - if God is something abstractly metaphysical like an idea, e.g. Harry Potter or the Soup Dragon; but the point of the scientific question is about influence on physical reality - if something can significantly influence physical reality, it will be physically real, by definition, and detectable by that influence.

Again, you can't have it both ways - either it's physically real and has real physical influence, or it isn't and doesn't.

AV1611VET · Oct 2, 2020

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
Saying that God is not part of physical reality is fair enough - if God is something abstractly metaphysical like an idea, e.g. Harry Potter or the Soup Dragon; but the point of the scientific question is about influence on physical reality - if something can significantly influence physical reality, it will be physically real, by definition, and detectable by that influence.

Again, you can't have it both ways - either it's physically real and has real physical influence, or it isn't.

Then I'll give you my favorite example:

If you think there should be evidence for everything God did or does, then why aren't you out there looking for His footprints on the Sea of Galilee?

FrumiousBandersnatch · Oct 2, 2020

AV1611VET said:
Then I'll give you may favorite example:

If you think there should be evidence for everything God did or does, then why aren't you out there looking for His footprints on the Sea of Galilee?

Straw man - I don't think there should be evidence for everything God did or does; that would be absurd, there's not even evidence for everything my next door neighbour did or does.

But I also have a much more plausible explanation for God beliefs that doesn't involve unsupportable, unevidenced supernatural claims, and has anthropological, psychological, and neurological evidence supporting it: Gods are human fictions.

AV1611VET · Oct 2, 2020

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
Straw man -

Another "lazy" handwave?

God works in mysterious ways, doesn't He?

MIDutch · Oct 2, 2020

AV1611VET said:
You want us to lie and say God always works in detectable ways?

Well, given that you've had 6000 years (according to your calendar) for your god to do something that is even vaguely detectable, but still have no evidence that it's done anything, then it's hard to accept that your god is capable of ANYTHING (hint: a global, catastrophic flood that basically almost instantly terraforms the entire planet would leave evidence of it's occurence).

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