evolution vs creation vs Intelligent Design

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(windstrings @ Apr 26 2006, 02:38 PM) [snapback]245738[/snapback]</div>

When you say "there has to be a god" what you are really saying is that you cannot imagine a universe without a god. But your inability to imagine a purely natural universe is not evidence for a god. More to the point, your inability to imagine a universe without a creator does not cast any light on any of the questions of beginnings and processes that led to the present state of things.

Second, even if one were to believe that the universe "has to" have a creator, because this is all too "unimaginably complicated" to have arisen by itself, you have no way of infering from that what your putative creator is like.

I have a friend who believes that there must be "something" "out there" but that whatever it is, is probably something that nobody has ever thought of, or ever will: that all religions are utterly wrong because the human mind is incapable of imagining whatever it is. Christians, of course, say that god is unknowable, but this takes it a step farther, asserting that the Bible, the Koran, and all other "holy scriptures" are all wrong because the reality is something no person has ever dreamed of.

Of course, I don't believe in any of it. But I think my friend has a much more likely hypothesis than any religion.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Apr 29 2006, 07:07 PM) [snapback]247375[/snapback]</div>

Yeah, Paul (Saul) was a member of the Sanhedrin, so he definately believed in G*d!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Apr 29 2006, 07:07 PM) [snapback]247375[/snapback]</div>

Without doing to much digging... I understood him to basically be a hit man against christians as well as the chief persecutor.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(windstrings @ May 1 2006, 02:08 AM) [snapback]247828[/snapback]</div>

And I thought he was a Roman citizen....that is why he could not be crucified but was executed by beheading.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ May 1 2006, 07:18 PM) [snapback]248318[/snapback]</div>

The Apostle Paul was a devout Jew, a Roman Citizen, perhaps a pharisee, appointed by the Sandhedrin, was present at the first recorded stoning of a Christian martyr (Stephen in the book of Acts), and had a conversion experience while on the road where he had a vision of the risen Christ. This vision qualifies him as an Apostle under the rules some denominations have of those who lived concurrently with Jesus and followed him in that age.

Paul was also the one apostle who thought the gospel should be spread among the gentiles. In fact, the split between Paul and Peter recorded in Acts is due to this belief. Luke, the Greek physician who wrote the book of Acts, records a vision that Peter had that helped resolve the issue (for Bible fans, look for the passage regarding a vision of "all sorts of unclean animals" and God's admonission to "rise, kill and eat"). Peter relented but the Jerusalem church worried that their commune could not support members flung out in the world; in the end, the churches among the gentiles ended up supporting the church at Jerusalem. Internal evidences support the idea that the book of Acts was written before Paul's martyrdom by the Roman axe, and before Peter's crucifixion (where he pled to be crucified upside down, as he was not worthy to be killed as his Lord was killed).

Paul is greatly misunderstood by the anti-faith crowd, as they have only read selected passages, out of context of the times and sub-cultures he was addressing. But it is instructive to study him and his writings; he is probably the one most responsible for the dynamic, liberal theology that spread across the Roman world and survives to this day.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Apr 29 2006, 07:41 PM) [snapback]247383[/snapback]</div>

Can you explain why you think your friend's hypothesis holds more weight than the others?

Is it because:

A. It is unique, and since no one has the "truth", then only an off-beat or rare belief could be true?

B. Is it because he is smarter than everyone who believes an "accepted" belief?

I think its more likely to be the former rather than the latter.

The reason I ask is that usually we agree with people that we, well, agree with. But you have stated that you don't believe "any of it", so that can't be it. I've tried to think of a reason to deduce that he has the most likelihood of being right, but I can't put a rational or analytical reason behind it except for the two weak choices above.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ May 2 2006, 08:18 PM) [snapback]248900[/snapback]</div>

It is because we are speaking of things that are, in fact, unknowable, and that a myriad religions and sects hold mutually exclusive views, each claiming to know the unknowable. Even among christians, different sects argue about the details: salvation by grace or by works, young earth or old earth, creation by divine edict or by the slow process of evolution (many christians believe in evolution), what happens to people who've never heard of Jesus, the "doctrine of the second chance", whether to follow Jesus's edicts in the Sermon on the Mount or to worship at the alter of capitalistic greed, whether god is one person or three, etc., etc., etc.

Thus there are two broad possibilities: One possibility is that a miniscule percentage of the world's population holds a monopoly on the truth while everyone esle is deluded or worse; and the other possibility is that nobody knows the truth.

The distinguishing feature of my friend's philosophy is that it does not claim to know anything about god or the origins of the world. It is not a religion. My friend simply says, "We cannot know." Though he believes that there is something "out there" that we cannot even guess at.

I find it mind-bogglingly egotistical when people think they can know everything about the origins of the world and life by interpreting a self-contradictory anthology that claims, on no basis other than its own claim, that it is the "word of god."

A person who says, "I think there was a creator, but we cannot know what it is like," is just so much more intelligent than a person who thinks he can know the unknowable.

Actually, I think that scientists who are christians lean more toward my friend's way of thinking, and regard their various church's dogmas as myths rather than as literal truths, placing more importance on the ethics of their religion than on its creation myths. Indeed, many mainstream christian denominations read the Bible as allegory. A friend of mine who is a Congregational UCC minister once said to me that "there is no faith-based reason to read the Bible literally."

 

"A person who says, "I think there was a creator, but we cannot know what it is like," is just so much more intelligent than a person who thinks he can know the unknowable."

On what basis, then, does this "intelligent" person think there was/is a "creator"? Most scientists have rejected the idea of a "creator". It is really nothing more than wishful thinking. Socrates said "the only thing I know is that I don't know". The Buddha was reportedly silent on the question of life after death, reincarnation being essentially an imported Hindu concept.

Religions are cultural products of the human imagination, like language, music or cooking, which is why they are so varied. Of course they have no basis in reality. Science is a wonderful thing in that it is a reality-based human endeavour and is therefore the only path we have to truth.

Religion has been responsible for a very large share of human suffering due to its intolerance and frankly delusion mode of thinking. Religion is, in fact, a form of mass psychosis that we must overcome, like a deadly flu virus. It is amazingly easy to infect people with the religion virus if you do it before the age of five. I was lucky, they never got their hands on me until it was too late - by that time I could think.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jared2 @ May 5 2006, 07:55 AM) [snapback]250212[/snapback]</div>

He is unknowable with sin. Sin blocks communion with a Holy God.

He is the only one that can remove it.

He offers the solution, but Man has to accept it... until then, your right... there is a great gulf fixed between God and man.

 

They get mad props for brainwashing you. I was really close to your position windstrings; glad I got out!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mirza @ May 5 2006, 09:28 AM) [snapback]250266[/snapback]</div>

Most of what we talk about is evident all around us.. look at nature itself... everything has a reaction and interacts with each other.
No where can I witness that you do not reap what you sow. If you sow death verses sowing life.
There are laws of harvest and seedtime.

Just because someone doesn't believe in gravity doesn't nullify its power and reality.

Anyone who doesn't believe in God, doesn't believe in anything at all and doubts their own existence and is blind and deaf and cannot feel.... they are dead.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jared2 @ May 5 2006, 07:55 AM) [snapback]250212[/snapback]</div>

I see it more like the "lack of and conterfeit religion" is the cause of pain and suffering.

What do you think would happen to this world in 5 minutes if all influence from God was removed?

No love, kindness, longsuffering, patience etc etc?

Forget that his word hold molecular structure in place?

WHHHYYYYY does gravity exist? why does light exist? where did it come from and what prevents it from leaving at any moment?

Why do you have to breath to live?.... why do you have to sleep?. ..... why does your bladder muscles stretch and your heart muscle behave unique to any other mucscle in the body? Why does anything do as it does and what keeps it that way?

Some people are in a deep coma and can't see the sun of day. God is real... just because you don't know him does not deny your existence. What are you anyway.. just a vapor in the cosmos?.. who made that?

This really isn't hard at all.

Just because you can't understand something does not make it not real.

(Job 36:22 KJV) Behold, God exalteth by his power: who teacheth like him?
(Job 36:23 KJV) Who hath enjoined him his way? or who can say, Thou hast wrought iniquity?

(Job 40:6 KJV) Then answered the LORD unto Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
(Job 40:7 KJV) Gird up thy loins now like a man: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.
(Job 40:8 KJV) Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous?

 

And fundamentally (ha!) what it comes down to is that we disagree on this part:

"Anyone who doesn't believe in God, doesn't believe in anything at all and doubts their own existence and is blind and deaf and cannot feel.... they are dead." -Windstrings

I don't live my life around religiously based moral rulings, in the hopes of an eternity of rewards - I honestly think I'll die someday and all that will be left is what I have given to this world and those around me. I live my life for me and those I love, trying my damnedest to give the world what I can without hurting others in the process. I try to live a good life so that I can know that when I die, the good works I've done will help someone, anyone, hopefully many someones, for all the rest of humanity. I'm not dead, I'm alive and singing, and if there's a god up there worth worshipping, he'll understand that he made me well enough to get along without a rigid rulebook and rituals.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(geologyrox @ May 5 2006, 01:26 PM) [snapback]250445[/snapback]</div>

Your still hiding behind your understanding to justify living your life and you want without accountablity and rules. You are a law to yourself, which means you have no law.

If you exist, God exist... If God doesn't exist.. neither do you.

Why live your life anyway at all if living for today and pleasure and all you build and accomplish is only dust in the wind?

If none of this is being watched, recorded in the book of life, and building towards something, then why do anything at all?

Killing yourself now, or not even being born will be the same as living a totally fullfilled life and having the world at your disposal.. because both will die and be no more as if none of it ever happened?

You say, you leave a legacy... so what... to what?..... what is life good for and why is it even worth living if it is not eternal?

(Mat 16:26 KJV) For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
(Mat 16:27 KJV) For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.

 

Ah, but should you judge me for my living according to that law that lives only inside me?

"Do you, my friend, pass judgment on others? You have no excuse at all, whoever you are. For when you judge others, but do the same things that they do, you condemn yourself. We know that God is right when He judges the people who do such things as these. But you, my friend, do these very things yourself for which you pass judgment on others! Do you think you will escape God's judgment?"


I'm not a Christian, I'm not even religious at all. I do have a great respect for those who are honestly good people, and I admit that many of the best people I know are deeply religious. I admire that these people try, each day, to be a better person than they were yesterday, to truly wish they were better. I wake, each day, and wish that today I could be a better wife, a better daughter, a better sister, a better friend, a better tenant to this earth - these days, I find myself 'wishing' to be a better citizen. I don't understand why you think it should matter whether I do this out of love for my husband, my parents, my brothers, my planet, my country, and ALL OF THEIR FUTURES, or out of fear or desire for acceptance of your god.

If there is a good, just, worship-worthy god waiting for me at the end of this life, and I keep *trying* to do the next right thing, I'd like to think that he'd give me a fair shake. Really, if the god you believe in exists, he put this fiercely independant streak into me, and he's probably more amused by me than anything.

If I come to a god who shakes his head and sends me off to an eternity of suffering without a thought simply because I acted in my own name, rather than his, I'd know that I made the right choice in living without religion - I wouldn't want to worship a god who would condemn a person so selfishly.

If I die, and nothing happens at all, I'm OK with the idea. I think that even a short life is worth living, even if I died tomorrow, I'd die knowing that I did what I could for those who will come after me.

EDIT for spelling ::sigh::

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ May 3 2006, 11:33 AM) [snapback]249169[/snapback]</div>

Thanks for the response. It does clarify where you are coming from, and I want to start by acknowledging that I respect it, as it is well reasoned. But I want to disagree with you about what is "knowable" and "unknowable". Human knowledge is much broader than just our observations about the physical world. I would hate to limit myself to the view that only things provable in the legalistic sense are real.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ May 3 2006, 11:33 AM) [snapback]249169[/snapback]</div>

He is simply an agnostic. There are a few of them around. I would challenge you to look at the statistics of the numbers of people who believe in monotheism, all of whom believe in the same God. Plenty of disagreement about specifics, but that is not unique to religion: it is found in science as well. Your position seems to say that unless a majority of people agree on something, in every single detail, then that thing must be false. But to say that compromises every area of human inquiry. Christianity, specifically, and other western intellectual endeavors such as science, politics, and sociology have at their core the idea that humans are to reason through difficulties. Vigorous debate occurs in all of these fields.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ May 3 2006, 11:33 AM) [snapback]249169[/snapback]</div>

OK, that's fair enough, and without any other evidence, I can certainly see that the "well, it is so because I believe it is so" is a weaker argument than "I don't know."

One of the problems with your view in this particular case (i.e., the Bible being the word of God) is that it assumes the scholars who canonized a certain set of books did so out of ignorance. What the lay Christian is really doing is making a classic "appeal to authority" without really knowing it. While all appeals to authority are weak, in that they only say that because an authority said something it has more likelihood of being true, it then becomes an issue of whether the authorities are right or not. Further inquiry then either affirms the claim for the individual, or not.

It seems to me your friend has simply given up, and hasn't tested the various "appeal to authority" statements out there. He also is making the assertion that because he doesn't know, then no one knows. I'm sure your friend is a wonderful person, but to someone who doesn't know him, it appears his statement is "Because I don't know, then no one can know." That seems more egotistical than to me than the idea that I agree with a bunch of smart guys.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ May 3 2006, 11:33 AM) [snapback]249169[/snapback]</div>

I don't know that I've seen any empirical proof that scientists who are Christian believe the Bible or their church is full of myths. On the subject of evolution, do you realize the Catholic church has always supported inquiry into this field with only one reservation, and it is scientifically unimportant? Most Christian denominations hold similar, if not the same views. It is only American fundamentalism and the evangelical community that hold out for a literal, 7 day reading of the creation story in Genesis (and I wish they would actually read the first two chapters; it is obviously not a literal account).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jared2 @ May 5 2006, 07:55 AM) [snapback]250212[/snapback]</div>

Do you find it interesting that only Christians started science? Why didn't it flourish in the east? Why didn't the knowledge gained by Socrates translate into transforming their culture? Why didn't it flourish in the Islamic world; after all, they had great minds there too, as evidenced by the advances in mathematics. The ancients were pretty smart guys, but in Socrates case, he thought what we today call scientific inquiry was unimportant (he thought empiricism such as astronomical observations were a "waste of time").

One of the driving forces behind western science was the cultural idea that there is a creator, and that gathering knowledge about the thing he created is a good thing, not a 'waste of time'. The more we find out about creation itself, the more we can see the handiwork of the creator.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jared2 @ May 5 2006, 07:55 AM) [snapback]250212[/snapback]</div>

Actually, the majority of human suffering in the last 2000 years, if we're talking numbers, have been from officially atheistic societies. Hard to beat the numbers that Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot racked up.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ May 7 2006, 12:09 AM) [snapback]250969[/snapback]</div>

Actually, if you care to study a little history, you will find that the Islamic world was making numerous important scientific advances while the Christian world was still burning people for suggesting the world might not be flat.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(geologyrox @ May 6 2006, 08:28 PM) [snapback]250953[/snapback]</div>

You forget about the breath you breath.... your life is extremely fragile and you know very little and cannot see yourself in the mirror.

(James 1:23 KJV) For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
(James 1:24 KJV) For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Subversive @ May 6 2006, 09:51 PM) [snapback]250987[/snapback]</div>

Well, actually, you're wrong. Not that the Islamic world didn't make contributions, and especially in the field of mathematics, but they simply didn't have the culture that would give rise to science. And guess what? They never developed what we call science today.

While you can't tell it from the behavior of American fundamentalists and even some evangelicals (who should know better), Christianity has always been open to reason and debate. Sociologists point to the fact that Christianity had to debate and "reason through" many issues, such as the nature of God, the deity of Jesus, etc. The founder of Christianity, Jesus, never wrote a word down, so Christians were faced with differing accounts of his life and had to decide which ones were good, and which were not so good. This process required debate and appeals to reason to set the structure of the new faith.

In Islam, Allah is not presented simply as the creator, but also as a very active and intervening God who injects his will forcefully in daily life. There was (is?) a major theological bloc in Islam that condemns all efforts to formulate natural laws as blasphemy because they deny Allah the opportunity to act. Islam did retain a lot of the Greek knowledge about the physical world at the time the Europeans were burning books, but it didn't generate any progression into inquiry about the cosmos. They simply accepted the greek learning, and work of guys like Aristotle, without question and didn't challenge it. It was something to be "believed" and not something to be verified.

The culture of the east, as advanced as it was, also did not give rise to modern science. The idea ... even expressed here ... that all this is "unknowable" and therefore no one is really right ... argues strongly against trying to figure things out. Who knows how many comets traverse the sky? In the east, they tracked the brightest ones, but in the west, Messier was cataloging stars to find out which lights in the sky were comets, which were stars, and which were something else. In the west, "unknowable" was not a working concept.

Since the Christian God is not one that intervenes daily in the physical world, and is not a God who reveals himself to us daily, the best way to understand him better is to know his creation. Studying creation, and reasoning through the mysteries of the universe, finding the principles underlying the cosmos, is an act of worship for the Christian.

It is still that way for the majority of Christians in the world, including the Roman Catholic Church, which has never objected to the idea of evolution. It is American fundamentalists and, to some extent, evangelicals, who insist that science is an enemy in the culture wars. It got them to vote Republican, after all.