While I sort out the 10,000 comments from the Fairy Tale Museum post, have a look at this outstanding clip from the Daily Show. A while back they did a 4 part series on the battle of Evolution vs Creationism in the US. What I found facinating was their coverage of the John Scopes Monkey Trial, which I was not aware of. Do yourself a favor and read all about it because it really pertains to today.
If you’ve missed this series, have a good look. But be warned because it’s long… real long, like over 40 minutes. It’s perfect though if you’re sitting at work and need something to break the monotony :) Enjoy!
Related posts:
- Evolution Vs Creationism – Simpsons Style
- Evolution Vs Creationism – Family Guy Style
- The Evolution Of Summer Camp
Not aware of as in never heard of..? Go rent ‘Inherit the Wind’, an excellent movie.
Evolution Schmevolution!…
nice…..
I think it would be really cool to release hundreds of diseased and hungry primates into a few of the supporting churches. I mean, come on, think aboot it, they’d sure learn the evolution lesson real quick! :P
BTW: I love this website.
Shaze, that wouldn’t teach any creationists anything. Most creationinsts accept “microevolution” (they kinda have to; Christians have been breeding dogs for centuries), which is all you’d learn about from that exposure. In any case, being abusive is no way to behave in any debate, no matter whether you think you can convert the opposition or not.
What about when playing the dozens, as the kids say? I think then you’re supposed to be abusive. I’m sure it can be applied to religious debate: Yo god’s teeth so yellow, he spit and a likeness of him appeared in some butter.
Obviously I do not play the dozens.
That was fucking awesome..
“I think it would be really cool to release hundreds of diseased and hungry primates into a few of the supporting churches.”
“Shaze, that wouldn’t teach any creationists anything.”
no it wouldn’t. If you’d somehow find the ultimate answer that evolution is the thruth and show it to them, most still wouldn’t believe it.
It would be fun to watch though :)
Just a quick thing-Darwin specifically *avoided* talking about mankind in his “origin of the species” and ideas of human evolution were only elaborated later by other scientists (or was it Darwin himself?). Anyways, Origin of the Species only applied to *other* animals.
At least, I think that’s right.
hmmmm.
Your friendly neighbourhood Agnostic.
On the topic of evolution:
I think it would be interesting to see what our morals would be like if we evolved form a lower form of creatures. It would be in our interest to help each other, since creatures that don’t stick up for each other have less of a survival chance. It is a waste to stick up for other creatures too much so it is best to stick up for creatures closest to you. These are the ones who most likely would benefit your survival and should you not survive, carry on genes most similar to your own.
This means that from and evolutionary perspective, it makes sense that we’d evolve morals based on helping those like us (helping the kid you see who is hurt). This seems to include most of the conservative morals (family-oreinted morals, nationalism/patriotism, helping the people you see dieing on the tv [they feel close to you], while not carring as much for those of different country/race/religion, and although it’s slightly different, the anti-gay, anti-contraception ideas also make sense from an evolution standpoint). The strange thing is, the morals that seem hard to understand from a strictly evolutionary standpoint and so seem most likely to be contributed to God are the ones practiced by those godless liberals(environmentalism, animal friendliness, supporting people of other countries, helping the poor and weak, racial equality, religious equality, etc).
It just seems a little humorous to me that the people most violently opposing evolution and most ashamed at being considered animals are the ones acting most like animals and following morals that seem based almost solely on evolution.
is that jesus
There are two problems I see.
1) Evolution decreases the individual’s responsibility to others, especially of same type. I mean, a herd of Zebra could trample cheetah easy, but they run away from it and the weakest dies.
Survival of the fittest does not imply survival of the group. Survival of the fittest means you will help others as long as you can see a mutual benefit. Once the mutual benefit ends, so does the help in order to ensure your survival. If you can either run faster than the cheetah, take some time and get the other Zebra to work as a team, or just outrun Bob the overweight smoker Zebra, which do you think you would choose as an animal?
Evolution was used heavily in the Roe v. Wade case, which is a prime example of removal of same species to ensure your survival. Somehow the same “your morals are from evolution” argument can work both sides of a case and both be right.
2) You seem to think the *still theory* of evolution has any more weight or value than the *theory* of creationism for children or people who have not decided.
From the wiki article on Evolution:
“In this scientific sense, ‘facts’ are what theories attempt to explain…heritable variation, natural selection, and response to selection (e.g. in domesticated plants and animals) are ‘facts’, and the generalization or extrapolation beyond these phenomena, and the explanation for them, is the ‘theory of evolution’.”
I find it strange that with so many people claiming that “creationists” are ignorant of science, evolutionists cannot depend on the “Scientific Method” to prove the theory of evolution. Of all the links and “References” I have found, the words “idea”, “think”, “suppose”, “suggest”, “estimated”. Those are the words of opinion and bias, not neccesarily fact. Not to say I don’t have bias, everyone does. But bias isn’t fact, so we (me included) shouldn’t force it on other people.
It seems a little humorous to me that the people who prefer to sit on a mountain of guesses and stand to lose the most from being proved wrong are the ones who will accept any answer to keep the mountain from crumbling, rather than come off the mountain.
Nate,
You said:
“Survival of the fittest does not imply survival of the group.”
It does when the animal is a social animal.
Also:
“Survival of the fittest means you will help others as long as you can see a mutual benefit. Once the mutual benefit ends, so does the help in order to ensure your survival.”
But thats just it, the mutual benefit doesn’t end with social animals. Individuals build bonds and trust. Economies form (even in animals besides humans, to some degree). Responsibilities are shared. Individuals specialize. Etc etc.
Also:
“If you can either run faster than the cheetah, take some time and get the other Zebra to work as a team, or just outrun Bob the overweight smoker Zebra, which do you think you would choose as an animal?”
Are zebras social animals?
Also:
“Evolution was used heavily in the Roe v. Wade case, which is a prime example of removal of same species to ensure your survival. Somehow the same “your morals are from evolution†argument can work both sides of a case and both be right.”
Can you provide a cite which shows exactly how “evolution” was used in Row v. Wade? I find that hard to believe. No self respecting scientist would use evolution to justify anything. Scientists are only concerned with explaining. Oh wait, these are lawyers we’re talking about…
Please do not confuse using evolution to explain morals and using it to justify morals. The latter is a huge mistake.
“It seems a little humorous to me that the people who prefer to sit on a mountain of guesses and stand to lose the most from being proved wrong are the ones who will accept any answer to keep the mountain from crumbling, rather than come off the mountain.”
You mean like creationist with their Water Canopy Theory, for example?
For the zebra, I would assume that the pattern on their sides would be some sort of “group camouflage” in order to keep an predator from targeting a specific zebra.
But, when threatened by a predator, the zebra run. The one that doesn’t run the fastest gets eaten, and the process starts again when the predator is next hungry.
So, I would say that they are not social, because one of them must die before the predator is satiated. And I am not aware of any recorded event where the zebra trampled a predator to death. The ones that are the fastest survive longer than the slow.
The fastest just use the slow as a cover, as while they are in the group, the chance of being singled out is next to none. But when push comes to shove, it’s every zebra for themselves. When it’s over, the process starts again.
——————————————————–
Moving on, I cannot provide a cite because evolution has never been explicitly mentioned in the shortened transcripts that I have been reading over. The problem is that I cannot seem to find any fully complete court transcripts of the arguments, nor can I seem to find the briefs from the 3 times it was argued.
However, in what I was able to find, there was mention over how to define a fetus as being alive or “enough human”, with stated attempts to stay away from an “emotional response”, which would give an edge to “scientific theory” rather than “religious beliefs.”
The concepts being tossed about that the human fetus is not fully human from the moment of conception is an idea put forth by the recapitulation theory, among others:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recapitulation_theory
Which bear a striking resemblance to dehumanizing the unborn and in favor of the mother’s rights. I will say that just because the arguments are strikingly similar, does not imply that they are linked.
Though the theory, long proved false “in the strictist sense”, was so interesting that Stephen Jay Gould would 4 years later write a book about the topic (book is referenced in the wiki page) and his own opinion/adaptations about it.
——————————————————–
As far as using evolution to justify morals, I ask you honestly whether popular culture would agree with that. With, say as much of a push for everybody to have sex “because it is natural and feels good,” do you really think we live in a culture not largely affected by the logical conclusions that would follow if evolution were true?
With the theory of evolution, no more cosmic killjoy, or ultimate responsibility or need for guilt. If this life is not the result of an intelligent design but instead by random chance, then let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.
——————————————————–
For the humor, I can’t say I had ever even heard of that theory. It, probably much like recapitulation, was spawned by people who demanded answers in places where there were no questions. Thus, you get lunacy flying in the face of good sense. We all will defend our faiths till the end.
It is more a matter of who has the biggest mountain to fall from if proved wrong. Evolution between species hasn’t been proven, and neither has creationism. Both require faith.
So, it is more a matter of whose hill is higher. I can pretty much make just 3 simplified assumptions that validate my faith:
1) The original sin was commited.
2) Christ ressurected on the third day.
3) The Bible is God-breathed (God inspired).
With just that, my faith is valid, because:
1) No original sin, no need for saving.
2) If Christ didn’t ressurect, then he was a liar and a fake.
3) If the Bible is not God-breathed, it is useless.
Everything else in Christianity can be concluded from these points being true. I wonder, in turn, how many assumptions are needed for evolution?
Nate,
Regarding the zebra part.. my point was that you can’t make broad generalizations about how evolutionary mechanisms would affect the behavior of all species of animals. You have to consider the nature of the species in question. For an animal that simply travels in a herd for safty, you wouldn’t have anything resembling morals because, as you say, it is every individual for itself. But some sense or morals or code of behavior is required for social animals to survive. Without some agreed upon code of conduct, a social group cannot work together and individuals cannot survive (generally). However, this does not justify any particular code of conduct, it merely explains them.
You said:
“Which bear a striking resemblance to dehumanizing the unborn and in favor of the mother’s rights. I will say that just because the arguments are strikingly similar, does not imply that they are linked.”
I personally don’t feel that any dehumanizing is necessary. It is pretty clear to me that a woman should be the master of her own body. And as long as that fetus is in her body, it is under her jurisdiction, if you will. The government has nothing say about it. The government can’t make a woman give birth. And if the government tries to force it, we’ll go back to the days of coathanger abortions. And nobody wants that.
You said:
“As far as using evolution to justify morals, I ask you honestly whether popular culture would agree with that.”
Popular culture? I think popular culture is far to concerned with what clothes to wear and what hollywood celebrity is pregnant to be thinking about evolution and its moral implications.
“With, say as much of a push for everybody to have sex “because it is natural and feels good,†do you really think we live in a culture not largely affected by the logical conclusions that would follow if evolution were true?”
I do not thinking we live in a culture largely affected by the logical conclusions that one might draw from evolution. Since when did one’s sex drive have much to do with logic?
Besides, I don’t think it is right to censor scientific findings or theories based on what conclusions you think people might draw from them.
“With the theory of evolution, no more cosmic killjoy, or ultimate responsibility or need for guilt. If this life is not the result of an intelligent design but instead by random chance, then let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.”
That is a false dichotomy. One does not automatically become an amoral atheist/hedonist when one accepts evolution as the process by which new species come to be. I’m certainly neither an atheist nor a hedonist. Many many Christians (and people of other religions) accept evolution. It is not a religious or philosophical matter.
You said:
“For the humor, I can’t say I had ever even heard of that theory. It, probably much like recapitulation, was spawned by people who demanded answers in places where there were no questions. Thus, you get lunacy flying in the face of good sense. We all will defend our faiths till the end.”
Water Canopy “theory” is an answer to the question of where all the water came from for Noah’s Flood. And yes, it is lunacy. Ask any question about the details of Creation and other parts of Genesis which are not specifically mentioned in the Bible and all you get is lunacy.
“It is more a matter of who has the biggest mountain to fall from if proved wrong. Evolution between species hasn’t been proven, and neither has creationism. Both require faith.”
That is fine because science is not about proving anything. It is about formulating and honing theories which explain the natural world based on evidence. And it has served us pretty well so far. You’re only picking on evolution because it conflicts with your religious beliefs.
“So, it is more a matter of whose hill is higher. I can pretty much make just 3 simplified assumptions that validate my faith:”
Assumptions don’t validate anything. They’re just assumptions.
“Everything else in Christianity can be concluded from these points being true. I wonder, in turn, how many assumptions are needed for evolution?”
Only one assumption is needed for evolution (and science in general): That everything we see and hear can be explained without invoking supernatural agents. This doesn’t mean that supernatural agents are not somehow involved or do not exist in some way or another. It just means that they are not required to explain things.
“With the theory of evolution, no more cosmic killjoy, or ultimate responsibility or need for guilt. If this life is not the result of an intelligent design but instead by random chance, then let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.”
As Matthew mentioned, evolution doesn’t disprove an afterlife and nothing can. You act as if atheists/agnostics have some huge incentive not to believe in god or an afterlife. Most of us don’t go around doing irresponsible things because we don’t fear eternal retribution.
I for one am an atheist, and I try to look at religion in an unbiased manner. If there was a god, and an afterlife, that would be great. I don’t see any reason why I would get the (*insert religious punishment), but I can’t just believe it because it would be nice. Religion just doesnt make any sense to me. It is logically unsound and inconsistent, and I can’t see any reason to believe it other than that it would be nice. I don’t believe it because it I seek the truth, however unpleasant.
about 50% of america doesn’t believe in evolution. WTF!?
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/15/1845200
Honestly I had no idea we were that bad. Maybe I have a scewed perpective because I live in massachusetts, and have never visitted the bible belt, but honestly…. 50%!?!?
I have never been more ashamed to be an American.
You really shouldn’t be so surprised. I mean, Dubya got about the same percentage of the votes in the last election. That should have pretty much destroyed any faith you might have had in the American people as far as their ability to apply reason goes.
Believing in God gives the person psychological rewards in the here and now. It gives them an “identity.” I believe this as oppposed to that, therefore, I’m not that. Ask a person “who are you?” and if they answer “Christian” it means they are not anything else, a pyschological boundary for the “self”. Christians NEED non christians for existence, like the KKK need niggers to have something to focus on. Without opposites they won’t exist, light exists only if there is darkness. So both are required. Believing in God also alleviates the FEAR of death, tell yourself a lie to help cope with all our destiny. It also provides COMMUNITY a group of people doing and behaving alike, especially comforting for people without sense of self. Also provides excuse for IRRESPONSIBILTY, if you let GOD control your life you don’t have to be responsible for anything in your life. Success or failures are all the workings of GOD. It allows adults to remain psychological children, behaving morally only when God is there to reward or punish. Because without God, ALL Christians cannot control themselves, they will give in to their basest desires and be hedonistic and live only for today. Without God, they will express themselves exactly the way they want, only with God can they pretend to keep it under control. It gives them a sense of MORAL SUPERIORITY, and that strokes the ego well. It gives them a sense of CERTAINTY, even if that certainty is a lie, because a lie is better than an uncertain truth for insecure people. And since God isn’t REAL enough for Christians, they need to attack anything that threatens to make God even less real. If they KNOW God as well as knowing their own face, then nothing could make them NOT believe, but Christians never talk about DIRECT experience of God, only what they IMAGINE what God is like from reading the Bible. So they are really worshipping figments of their imagination from their own particular way of interpreting the Bible and influenced by their particular branch of interpretation, be it Catholic or Mormon or whatever.
On the flip side, believing in Evolution provides none of those psychological rewards. Knowing we came from monkeys and apes doesn’t help with day to day living and coping with stress and fears. So to defend their coping mechanism for life, Christians and all “Faith based religions” must deny anything that threatens that mechanism. Including denying reality, scientific observation, geological and fossil records, astronomy, biology, chemistry and physics. Deny all that, but accept the Bible as “Truth.” Because the Bible is limited, so many pages and so many words, can be handled by insecure people, they can see the boundaries. But REALITY as observed by science is OVERWHELMING for the Christian. Just the size of the Solar system in comparison to one person renders that person so miniscule, the size of the galaxy and the universe just blows the mind. So to avoid the reality of their insignificance in the universe, Christians need to believe that they are somehow special and chosen by the creator of the universe.
Christian faith is based on the assumption of a “soul” is it not? What exactly is the soul? How does it manifest itself? Is it memory? behaviours? thoughts? All those things are changeable, therefore, the soul is not a “permanent entity”. Where does the soul reside? Within our physical bodies? So what happens when an accident removes an arm or a leg? Does the soul shrink? Is the soul in the heart? So what happens to heart transplant patients? In the brain? So where was the soul at the moment of conception when the human was only two cells, mommy and daddy cells. Does the soul enter the body after conception? What about invitro fertilization? Frozen embryos can be delayed growth into humans by keeping them in the freezer. So what is the soul doing all that time? If the soul resides in the “spiritual world”, does it have boundaries? Can one soul contaminate another? If a Christian is saved, can a non Christians evil condemn his soul? If it can, then salvation is not possible until ALL are saved, because one unsaved soul can “Re sin” the saved soul. If souls have boundaries, that is, a soul is a separate entity from another, only then can the person claim responsibity for his particular soul and seek salvation for his particular soul. If that is the case, than Original Sin does not matter. Adam’s sin cannot contaminate my soul. His sin resides within his soul, how can it contaminate mine? But “all have sinned” so the sin is passed through the genes? Or through the soul. Which means the soul does not have boundaries which means I can’t really be responsible for my soul’s sin, because the sin is someone elses’s. And therefore, I can’t really seek salvation for my particular soul.
Where in the Bible does it say you have a soul? As a permanent entity that continues after death? If there is no “soul” then salvation is not necessary for nothing has sinned, and Jesus and God are unnecessary because there is nothing to save. If you say the soul exists because Jesus saves it, it’s like saying you are guilty just because a cop arrests you. Cart before the horse.
So, Christians, instead of telling about your experiences of God, how about describing something even more intimate and “knowable” for those of us who are atheist or agnostic. Describe your “soul” and all of it’s manisfestations. If you say “it is a feeling”, non Christians have “feelings” too. And even feelings are temporary and changeble
Just popping in to say I am working on a reply, just a lot to cover and only just got back from vacation.
Will try to post as soon as I am happy with my response. Thanks for patience. ^_^
Matthew,
I am going to try to sum up the conclusions so far:
1) An animal is social if survival of the fittest implies survival of the group.
2) In order to survive as a group, morals or a code of behavior is required.
If I have these right:
A) If an individual only acts in a group for safety, not for the benefit of the
group, does it have morals or code of behavior?
B) Does acting only for the individual mean the individual is not social?
C) Are morals/code of behavior are what cause an individual to act in benefit for others in a group?
————————————————————
You said:
“…don’t feel that any dehumanizing is necessary…master of her own body…long as that fetus is in her body, it is under her jurisdiction, if you will.”
So, by this, do you mean that an unborn fetus has just about as much importance as a cancer growth or virus? That it has no more rights than a bacterium or scar tissue? That it is in the womans body and she has “the right to choose” to suck her unborn fetus through a tube into a sink?
That is dehumanization. Removing the value and rights of a born human from an unborn one so abortion becomes acceptable.
————————————————————
You said:
“The government has nothing say about it. The government can’t make a woman give birth. And if the government tries to force it, we’ll go back to the days of coathanger
abortions. And nobody wants that.”
The government is expected to protect the rights of an individual human being. Sure, the government can’t
make you do anything if you don’t want. But that doesn’t mean that you escape the consequences to be
carried out by the government. Saying nobody wants coathanger abortions is like saying nobody wants
meth dealers or mass murder. Big surprise. That doesn’t mean that it is right, or that it should still
be legal. All it says is that people who used made bad decisions used to have to deal with the
consequences, where today they don’t.
It isn’t removing freedom that people fear, it is increasing personal responsibility for their actions.
————————————————————
You said:
“I think popular culture is far to concerned with [fluff stuff other than evolution] to be thinking about
evolution and its moral implications.”
Exactly my point. Just because people don’t sit back and think about how things affect their life doesn’t mean
the affect isn’t there. Everything about our lives, how we grew up, how we view ourselves, has an affect on us,
whether we want to admit it or not. How man views his origins, be it of the species or just a specific
individual’s lifeline, changes the behavior of the individual.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_effect_of_evolutionary_theory
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You said:
“I do not [think] we live in a culture largely affected by the logical conclusions that one might draw from evolution.
Since when did one’s sex drive have much to do with logic?”
You missed the point. One logical conclusion is that if our origins were not from a creator, but chance, then we alone
are the masters of our actions, and we are responsible to nobody but ourselves. If we are not held responsible by some
creator or supreme being, then we are free to do whatever we want whenever we want without consequence to be carried
out by that supreme being.
————————————————————
You said:
“Besides, I don’t think it is right to censor scientific findings or theories based on what conclusions you think
people might draw from them.”
There we agree. But, you must be aware scientists do this all the time. Even Einstein is known to have fudged numbers
in calculations. Science may not have a bias, but scientists do.
————————————————————
You said:
“That is a false dichotomy. One does not automatically become an amoral atheist/hedonist when one accepts
evolution as the process by which new species come to be. I’m certainly neither an atheist nor a hedonist.”
I at no point said you become an amoral athiest/hedonist. I didn’t say go eat till you puke, drink till you pass out, and sleep with anyone who will have you and make fun of everyone who doesn’t. I was trying to say that if there is no ultimate creator of humanity to be responsible to, all the restraints on our actions predicated on avoiding divine punishment or gaining divine favor are unnneccesary.
Your understanding of purpose in life is predicated on what you believe. If there is no afterlife, then after you are dead, no fame or glory or wealth will mean anything to you. Getting your name in the books does nothing for you after you are dead. So, if nothing after this life matters, there is no reason to not do something because of morality based on teachings from a divine being.
————————————————————
You said:
“Many many Christians (and people of other religions) accept evolution. It is not a religious or philosophical matter.”
First off, just because people say they are Christian in a survey, doesn’t mean they are. Secondly, just because
something is popular, doesn’t make it right or mean it should be acceptable. Thirdly, theory of evolution with regards to intra-species evolution (adaptation) is well accepted. What is contested is to what extent the inter-species evolution aspect of the theory can be accepted.
The Genesis account gives a chain of events of how creatures were created:
Plants => Water Creatures & Birds => Land Creatures => Man
But man was created “different” from the rest:
Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the
sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move
along the ground.”
The theory of evolution as is taught today states man isn’t specially created, just lucky. I would find it very
hard for a Christian to accept that we both are and are not special without creating a paradox. To accpet that
birds were created at the same time as sea creaures, yet evolution would have them appearing further down the
line.
Evolution is a rock dropped into a pond, and the effects are far further stretching than just the original rock.
You are acting as if ideas have no effects, and that is dangerously ignorant of history.
————————————————————
You said:
“Water Canopy “theory†is an answer to the question of where all the water came from for Noah’s Flood. And yes,
it is lunacy. Ask any question about the details…all you get is lunacy.”
Right, so explaining how old bones are using radiocarbon dating is real effective when it only has a valid window out
to about 62K years old. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/arizona/rdc/2001/00000043/00000002/art00008
And explaining the huge amount of fossils we have, yet no complete intermediary fossil chains to show for it. Still
tons of “missing links”. Not even between Archaeopteryx and the “fuzzy dinosaurs” found in China is there a clear,
distinct, small change that allowed the one species to go to the other.
So, there are controversial theories within evolution like punctuated equilibrium which allow “on a short geological
timeline”, huge changes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium
Using a the argument, that “our fossils are the remains of large central populations…In the peripheral
region itself, we might find direct evidence of speciation, but such good fortune would be rare indeed because the
event occurs so rapidly in such a small population.”
In other words:
“All the fossils we have are from the population that wasn’t evolving. The ones that were evolving were inbreeding amongst each other because they were concentrated and set apart from the main population. So, the evolution would be fast because the result of the inbreeding would quickly change the genetic makeup and physical disposition, and there would be no inter-mediary form at all.”
The problem with recapitulation is that it presupposes the mutation within the population, but that it is so diluted, the feature rarely ever shows up. It is presupposing that the mutation is already there, just that the small population is needed to purify out the non-mutated genes so the new mutation can take form.
————————————————————
You said:
“That is fine because science is not about proving anything. It is about formulating and honing theories which
explain the natural world based on evidence.”
Please, explain to me how you “formulate and hone” theories without proving or disproving anything. That is the whole
point of “falsifiability” in the scientific method. You have to prove that the alternatives are not possible. After
that you refine or re-write, and start the falsifiability process over again.
Without proving or disproving anything, science can no longer be a tool for gaining knowledge, let alone refinement of
theory.
————————————————————
You said:
“You’re only picking on evolution because it conflicts with your religious beliefs.”
Wait, I thought that my “religious” beliefs and evolution had nothing to do with each other? Are you saying that I
believe differently from other “Christians”? Are you differentiating between “spiritual” Christianity and “religious” Christianity? Do you know which I believe in comparison to those “other Christians”?
So, which is it? Does evolution conflict with my beliefs, or doesn’t it? You can’t both claim that “evolution isn’t
a religious or philosophical issue”, then say that is the only reason why I am “picking” on it.
Please clear up this contradiction.
————————————————————
You said:
“Assumptions don’t validate anything. They’re just assumptions.”
An assumption is, by definition, to take for granted or without proof; suppose; postulate; posit.
I won’t argue that just because you make an assumption doesn’t make it valid. But I will say that there are some
assumptions closer to the truth than others. We call those “gut feelings” or “good guesses.” What I am saying in
my assumptions is that those are the only guesses I need to make, and that everything else, if those guesses are
true, can be taken or extrapolated from them.
————————————————————
Where you said:
“Only one assumption is needed…can be explained without invoking supernatural agents. This doesn’t mean that supernatural agents are not somehow involved…they are not required to explain things.”
So, for the things we will never see or hear, such as inter-species evolution which supposedly takes longer than known human history, how can we be so sure that what we are being told happened is what happened?
It hasn’t been proven that one species can through random mutations become a different species (not adaptation). It hasn’t been proven that one species can’t through random mutations become a different species.
Either way, you have to believe without proof.
“Either way, you have to believe without proof.”
This is true, however if you must choose to believe one theory over another without concrete proof either way, why not go for the one that makes the most sense.
For example:
If you compare evolution to a series of numbers, where the blank is the missing “unproven” part:
2,4,6,_,10,12,14,16
Evolution is believing the blank is 8 and there is a pattern, and ID is believing there is no pattern…its 51 because god said so.
Um…what about us? From our past experiences debating with Christians, we have found that they are real capable of pointing out passages in the Bible here and there to support their arguments if the debates are WITHIN the boundaries of the Bible. But once we start asking questions that exist OUTSIDE the parameters of the Bible, questions that actually forces the Christians to examine their spirituality and their ideas of God, instead of questions that just test their Bible knowledge, they FLOUNDER. And their psychological defense is to AVOID those questions that examine their spirituality on the deepest core levels, or if their confidence is shaken, they will label the questioner with negatives like “blasphemer.” Go on the attack if you will as their defense for their ignorance of their own spirituality. In all our years, we have not found Christians capable of providing an INTELLIGENT description of their SOUL. Googling it probably won’t help. And why is it so difficult to describe what lies so intimately within yourself? Unless your spirituality and relationship with God really is a SHALLOW one. Instead of true KNOWING of God and your own soul, your “religion” really is just a well read knowledge of a book, the Bible, but really is NOT a spiritual knowing of God. Remember, AVOIDANCE is FEAR. Fear of admitting that your belief in God is just a shallow book study, instead of a TRUE personal relationship
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