Question for Evolutionist

[David M]

Related how though, through having a common ancestor, or through having a common creator?

Common ancestry.

 

[Thanda]

Common ancestry.

Would you have guessed this without scientific indoctrination?

 

[David M]

Would you have guessed this without scientific indoctrination?

What scientific indoctrination? The similarity between animals such as the canines is obvious, it makes sense that they are biologically related. The lesser similarity between groups of mammals draws the same conclusion and our similarity to the apes intuitively means that we are related to them. I had this worked out before I was started learning biology at school

 

[Thanda]

What scientific indoctrination? The similarity between animals such as the canines is obvious, it makes sense that they are biologically related. The lesser similarity between groups of mammals draws the same conclusion and our similarity to the apes intuitively means that we are related to them. I had this worked out before I was started learning biology at school

I am merely asking. It is all good and well to speak about how obvious certain things are but when one considers the millions if not billions of people who lived and died and did not figure this out one really wonders if it is in fact as obvious as it now appears.

 

[metis]

The first two are irrelevant. We'll see when we get there. The last is my belief according to my life experience, we'll also see when we don't get there if it is a "none exist"?



I actually meant to write that god may not be interested in being proven simply to quench people's curiosity.



My assumptions are irrelevant. We all have to start somewhere. If we're honest seekers of truth all will eventually become clear.



I will always call things as I see them. Even in general matters of life we may say so and so is a good person just from a couple of interactions - we probably can't be 100% sure that they are a good person but they we call it as we see it from the information we have available. So from the information I have available and the experiences I can look to, there is a God. Should further information reveal otherwise than so be it. But I will not refrain from saying there is a God just because there is a possibility that information later on may prove otherwise.

It is similar in many scientific fields. Scientists have once held that Newtonian laws were universal. They claimed this and taught people this. But later other scientists can and showed that there are some phenomena that cannot be explained by Newtonian laws.

Again, you start out your response hedging your bets, which I believe was a good start, but then you slipped back into using assumptions again. Notice your first line you say "We'll see when we get there", but by the time you get near the end you wrote "So from the information I have available and the experiences I can look to, there is a God".

Please, all I'm doing is playing a bit of devil's advocate, not to tell you that you are wrong but just bringing attention to the assumptions that you appear to be making that are not based on any objective evidence. As a set of beliefs, I have no problem with what you wrote, but the trouble is that if we assume our beliefs are facts, we tend to close off our minds to other possible bits information.

"Misery likes company", and I did much the same as you throughout most of my life, although I will say that the issue of religious faith was always a problem with me mostly because of my science orientation and my rejection of the certainty that was preached to me in the fundamentalist church I grew up in. IOW, been there, done that, bought the T-shirt, but later burned it.

Anyhow, beliefs are beliefs, facts are facts, but we have to careful about automatically making beliefs facts just because that's what we want to believe.

shalom

 

[viole]

I am merely asking. It is all good and well to speak about how obvious certain things are but when one considers the millions if not billions of people who lived and died and did not figure this out one really wonders if it is in fact as obvious as it now appears.

Well, some realized that. For instance, Lucretius wrote this about 50 years before alleged Jesus birth (excerpt from "de Rerum Natura)

".. (Atoms) moving randomly through space, like dust motes in a sunbeam, colliding, hooking together, forming complex structures, breaking apart again, in a ceaseless process of creation and destruction. There is no escape from this process. ... There is no master plan, no divine architect, no intelligent design.

All things, including the species to which you belong, have evolved over vast stretches of time. The evolution is random, though in the case of living organisms, it involves a principle of natural selection. That is, species that are suited to survive and to reproduce successfully, endure, at least for a time; those that are not so well suited, die off quickly. But nothing — from our own species, to the planet on which we live, to the sun that lights our day — lasts forever. Only the atoms are immortal ..."

Not completely scientific accurate, but quite amazing. It makes me feel like believing in Jupiter, if He can inspire His people like that.

I think the authors of the Bible did not contemplate evolution, because they probably never saw a non-human ape. Obviously, given the fauna in the Middle East at that time, and the absence of zoos. If they did, they would have probably thought twice before writing that God made us in His image and liking without further explanations of what they meant by that.

Ciao

- viole

 

[metis]

There is no escape from this process. ... There is no master plan, no divine architect, no intelligent design.

How could you possibly know that?

 

[viole]

How could you possibly know that?

You asking me. Or Lucretius?

Ciao

- viole

 

[metis]

You asking me. Or Lucretius?

Ciao

- viole

Sorry, I didn't see that it was part of a quote, but you can answer it if you want.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

My poll numbers are correct though (77% accept evolutionary theory both in China and India among those who have heard of the theory). Obviously people will believe that the sun circles the earth unless they are taught otherwise. All religious Hindus and Buddhists believe that they had been animals and plants (and demons and gods) in their previous lives, and Hindus in addition consider apes and monkey as elder kin of humans (they are called forest-men). These religions (as wells as Daoism) emphasize connectivity rather than distinction between humans and other life forms and hence evolutionary theory is more of a confirmation rather than a challenge.

Depends what we define evolution as..

I'd agree with Darwin, Dawkins on this :

For Darwin, any evolution that had to be helped over the jumps by God was no evolution at all. It made a nonsense of the central point of evolution. The Blind Watchmaker (1996)

In the most recent Gallup poll, 19% believe in this sort of Darwinian/ purely natural evolution in the U.S.

which makes most of us skeptics, despite being fed it in school. So at the very least, it's not a very convincing theory to most people.

 

[metis]

Depends what we define evolution as..

I'd agree with Darwin, Dawkins on this :

For Darwin, any evolution that had to be helped over the jumps by God was no evolution at all. It made a nonsense of the central point of evolution. The Blind Watchmaker (1996)

In the most recent Gallup poll, 19% believe in this sort of Darwinian/ purely natural evolution in the U.S.

which makes most of us skeptics, despite being fed it in school. So at the very least, it's not a very convincing theory to most people.

My experience of 30 years teaching anthropology is that most people not that familiar with the ToE attach things to it that either aren't actually part of it or are only hypotheses. It neither posits nor eliminates possible theistic causation.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Depends what we define evolution as..

I'd agree with Darwin, Dawkins on this :

For Darwin, any evolution that had to be helped over the jumps by God was no evolution at all. It made a nonsense of the central point of evolution. The Blind Watchmaker (1996)

In the most recent Gallup poll, 19% believe in this sort of Darwinian/ purely natural evolution in the U.S.

which makes most of us skeptics, despite being fed it in school. So at the very least, it's not a very convincing theory to most people.

In America.

 

[outhouse]

Would you have guessed this without scientific indoctrination?

They teach this in grade school

 

[outhouse]

So at the very least, it's not a very convincing theory to most people.

No sequitur.

Most people lived and went to school before this factual knowledge was even taught in school.

Most people are under educated.


Many people have closed minds and refuse facts due to religious fanaticism.

 

[viole]

Sorry, I didn't see that it was part of a quote, but you can answer it if you want.

So, how do I know there is no final purpose?

Mainly because there is zero evidence of such a thing. It is, for starters not required to make a functioning Universe, and i do not accept useless hypotheses which do not have justifications that go beyong my wishful or phylosophical thinking, or my spiritual longings, whatever they are. And things do seem to be, ultimately pointless.

Expected retort: but absence of evidence, does not entail evidence of absence.

True. But by the same token, I have no evidence that most of the things I know are wrong, either. If I did, I would stop knowing them today. This fact does not justify demoting my knowledge about X to agnosticism about X, just because there might possibly be some counter evidence about X I am missing today.

Am I sure about my position? Nope. i am not sure about basically everything.

Knowledge is not certainty.

Ciao

- viole

 

[sayak83]

Depends what we define evolution as..

I'd agree with Darwin, Dawkins on this :

For Darwin, any evolution that had to be helped over the jumps by God was no evolution at all. It made a nonsense of the central point of evolution. The Blind Watchmaker (1996)

In the most recent Gallup poll, 19% believe in this sort of Darwinian/ purely natural evolution in the U.S.

which makes most of us skeptics, despite being fed it in school. So at the very least, it's not a very convincing theory to most people.

you are mistaken. A word theistic evolution simply means that the laws of evolution were laid down by God and that evolution is in accordance with God's plan. It does not imply that God enters into the systems and plug gaps that evolution is supposedly unable to bridge. ID is different from theistic evolution. There is no incompatibility between the science of evolution and the philosophical belief of theistic evolution.
Also I was talking about views in China and India.

 

[Thanda]

They teach this in grade school

What's the point of this?

 

[outhouse]

What's the point of this?

The facts of evolution are not scientific indoctrination.

They are facts taught to grade school children being reality and knowledge of the world they live on.

 

[Thanda]

The facts of evolution are not scientific indoctrination.

They are facts taught to grade school children being reality and knowledge of the world they live on.

Are the children in grade school presented with the evidence for evolution when they are taught?

 

[outhouse]

Are the children in grade school presented with the evidence for evolution when they are taught?

They are taught the academic facts of evolution.

And yes they are presented with the factual evidence in support of these academic facts.