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Just out of curiousity -- When does all this break down and "magic" becomes the only possible answer?
It doesn't, it's turtles all the way down ;)
To your previous statement, the fact that we don't know how the universe came into being does not imply that it was created by an omniscient, omnipotent being. In fact I'd say that, in the absence of compelling evidence, that's the least likely explanation - Occam's razor and all.
I'm not sure Occam's Razor really applies here given that the leading theory at the moment involves high dimensions, branes, collisions (without time as time is constrained within the universe, rather than the braneverse) and all sorts of other weirdness. Occam would probably have gone with God as the simpler solution.
How depressing. But ok.A logicial conclusion:
We can only exist to observe that we live on a world where life can exist because we evolved on such a planet. The vast majority of all the universe is utterly inhospitable to life.
No. Beautiful. One of the best reasons i can think of to reject gods, is that the universe as seen through the lense of science is just that more awe inspiring and wonderful than any story bronze aged man told around a camp fire.
Yes. Except that the "evidence" about the universe suggests otherwise.
Then we can agree that just because something exists, or is beautiful or is complex does not mean it had to be created?
I can accept that you find it more reasonable that god created the universe than it simply poofed into existence.
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Hmm. Here is an observation/question based on the direction this thread has taken lately.
If there is (more or less) a consensus that the presence or absence of God cannot be proven with the current evidence, then why the passionate debate to the contrary?
Those that have faith, of course, have it as a tenant of their beliefs to uphold their faith in the presence of adversity. I get that.
I guess it's more of a question of non-theists. Even if the evidence seems to tilt in favor of the absence of God, since his existence cannot be absolutely disproven, why spend so much energy making the case?
A better case could be made by someone like myself or Samnell, being in a demographic that has been condemned and vilified by certain religious groups, but even then, the argument need only be, "Since we all do not agree on matters of religious doctrine, do not use yours to persecute me or deny me civil liberties."
I will point out that I am more of a humanist myself, so it's really a question for my fellow non-theists. Why, in your opinion, is this a matter of such importance?
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Well, to be fair, religion generally obfuscates, then just gives up and says 'God/Allah/Higher Being X did it'. And if you disagree with those answers, you're a heretic.
I see a lot of misunderstanding of the concept of intelligent design and this post perfectly encapsulates that misunderstanding.
Intelligent design is the philosophy that helped lead to the scientific method. It is the believe that 1) everything was made the way it was for a reason, 2) There are natural laws at work which are inflexible and unyielding, 3) it is possible to observe the world and determine the reason for the way things are through the application of the natural laws in place.
The very term, law, as applied to the physical world, denotes the idea of a law-giver and it used to be quite common to understand that the spiritual laws could be better understood by understanding the inflexible nature of God's natural laws.
One of the best reasons i can think of to reject gods, is that the universe as seen through the lense of science is just that more awe inspiring and wonderful than any story bronze aged man told around a camp fire.
How dare you deny Crom! He will mock you and cast you away from Valhalla.
Intelligent design is the philosophy that helped lead to the scientific method.
Whoa. That is a new one to me.
I will point out that I am more of a humanist myself, so it's really a question for my fellow non-theists. Why, in your opinion, is this a matter of such importance?
As a scientist, it's nothing to me if my neighbor believes, or doesn't. But it's a disservice to all of us if his belief compels him to repeat claims about the natural world that are demonstratively untrue, and to push for those false claims to be made in a science classroom on his behalf. It's even worse for us if his belief requires him to automatically assume that I am immoral and untrustworthy simply because I do not share his belief.
Not all believers share these traits. Enough do to cause me some degree of concern.
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I will point out that I am more of a humanist myself, so it's really a question for my fellow non-theists. Why, in your opinion, is this a matter of such importance?As a scientist, it's nothing to me if my neighbor believes, or doesn't. But it's a disservice to all of us if his belief compels him to repeat claims about the natural world that are demonstratively untrue, and to push for those false claims to be made in a science classroom on his behalf.
This. Plus I get very annoyed when people tell me I'm less moral because I don't follow their particular brand of religion. And I'm a generally argumentative person.
EDIT: And why I'm in this thread is because I genuinely didn't understand believers as non-belief is so obvious to me. I'm still not 100% sure I understand, but at least it's clear that to the believer, belief is equally self-evident and obvious.
Well, to be fair, religion generally obfuscates, then just gives up and says 'God/Allah/Higher Being X did it'. And if you disagree with those answers, you're a heretic.I see a lot of misunderstanding of the concept of intelligent design and this post perfectly encapsulates that misunderstanding.
Intelligent design is the philosophy that helped lead to the scientific method. It is the believe that 1) everything was made the way it was for a reason, 2) There are natural laws at work which are inflexible and unyielding, 3) it is possible to observe the world and determine the reason for the way things are through the application of the natural laws in place.
The very term, law, as applied to the physical world, denotes the idea of a law-giver and it used to be quite common to understand that the spiritual laws could be better understood by understanding the inflexible nature of God's natural laws.
[citation needed]
Plus I get very annoyed when people tell me I'm less moral because I don't follow their particular brand of religion.
Hit that one, too -- see edit above!
The mammalian eye is a horribly designed thing. The lens is on the wrong side! WHY DID THEY PUT IT IN THE BACK!
The light-sensing cells are not just in the back, they are pointing their sensors right towards the insides of your skull instead of towards the light they're to sense. An intelligent designer would have fixed this obvious engineering error. We know any such designer would have known of the problem and had an easy fix for it, since it was done right on the octopus and squid.
There are lists of this kind of thing. They don't quite disprove a designer, since a designer could have been insane, stupid, evil, or otherwise incompetent. But intelligence is clearly not one of his traits, unless malevolence also is and the designer meant, for example, to try to kill human women when he designed their birth canal.
The mammalian eye is a horribly designed thing. The lens is on the wrong side! WHY DID THEY PUT IT IN THE BACK!The light-sensing cells are not just in the back, they are pointing their sensors right towards the insides of your skull instead of towards the light they're to sense. An intelligent designer would have fixed this obvious engineering error. We know any such designer would have known of the problem and had an easy fix for it, since it was done right on the octopus and squid.
There are lists of this kind of thing. They don't quite disprove a designer, since a designer could have been insane, stupid, evil, or otherwise incompetent. But intelligence is clearly not one of his traits, unless malevolence also is and the designer meant, for example, to try to kill human women when he designed their birth canal.
In intelligent designer would deal with breathing and eating/drinking in such a way that people where at worst less likely to choke on their food and at best, unable to. Seriously, its like spagetti junction in there.
And don't get me started on the human knee...
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[citation needed]Well, to be fair, religion generally obfuscates, then just gives up and says 'God/Allah/Higher Being X did it'. And if you disagree with those answers, you're a heretic.I see a lot of misunderstanding of the concept of intelligent design and this post perfectly encapsulates that misunderstanding.
Intelligent design is the philosophy that helped lead to the scientific method. It is the believe that 1) everything was made the way it was for a reason, 2) There are natural laws at work which are inflexible and unyielding, 3) it is possible to observe the world and determine the reason for the way things are through the application of the natural laws in place.
The very term, law, as applied to the physical world, denotes the idea of a law-giver and it used to be quite common to understand that the spiritual laws could be better understood by understanding the inflexible nature of God's natural laws.
I don't have a citation at the moment. And not enough time to look one up tonight.
Galileo though was a firm believer in God as were many of the early modern scientific pioneers. They conducted their expirements with the understanding (essentially) that I outlined above.
And I can tell you, as a person of faith, I have heard all my life about the comparison between natural laws and spiritual laws. It has long been a subject of sermons and classes.
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The mammalian eye is a horribly designed thing. The lens is on the wrong side! WHY DID THEY PUT IT IN THE BACK!The light-sensing cells are not just in the back, they are pointing their sensors right towards the insides of your skull instead of towards the light they're to sense. An intelligent designer would have fixed this obvious engineering error. We know any such designer would have known of the problem and had an easy fix for it, since it was done right on the octopus and squid.
There are lists of this kind of thing. They don't quite disprove a designer, since a designer could have been insane, stupid, evil, or otherwise incompetent. But intelligence is clearly not one of his traits, unless malevolence also is and the designer meant, for example, to try to kill human women when he designed their birth canal.
In intelligent designer would deal with breathing and eating/drinking in such a way that people where at worst less likely to choke on their food and at best, unable to. Seriously, its like spagetti junction in there.
And don't get me started on the human knee...
You are assuming these things are without reason. The person of faith would simply suggest that we don't yet know the reason and suggest further exploration.
On the other hand, a willingness to think that I am fearfully and wonderfully made is not the same as thinking I am indestructible. The same author who said, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made," acknowledged his own frailty when he said, "Lord teach me to number my days."
To some of us, frailty is a feature, not a bug. We may not always enjoy being frail, but we know that we can allow it to strengthen and humble us.
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I don't have a citation at the moment. And not enough time to look one up tonight.
I take it back, Google can produce some amazingly fast results. Though my wife is going to be annoyed I am not helping with the dishes before we take our children to one of their end of school functions.
"Galileo saw both the truths of Scriptures and the truths of nature as having been derived from the same source: God; therefore, one could not contradict the other. “Holy Scripture and nature, are both emanations from the divine word: the former dictated by the Holy Spirit, the latter the observant executrix of God’s commands.” Therefore “…no truth discovered in Nature could contradict the deep truth of the Holy Writ.” "
Sobel, Dava, Galileo’s Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love. Toronto: Viking Press, 1999, 64.
[citation needed]Well, to be fair, religion generally obfuscates, then just gives up and says 'God/Allah/Higher Being X did it'. And if you disagree with those answers, you're a heretic.I see a lot of misunderstanding of the concept of intelligent design and this post perfectly encapsulates that misunderstanding.
Intelligent design is the philosophy that helped lead to the scientific method. It is the believe that 1) everything was made the way it was for a reason, 2) There are natural laws at work which are inflexible and unyielding, 3) it is possible to observe the world and determine the reason for the way things are through the application of the natural laws in place.
The very term, law, as applied to the physical world, denotes the idea of a law-giver and it used to be quite common to understand that the spiritual laws could be better understood by understanding the inflexible nature of God's natural laws.
I don't have a citation at the moment. And not enough time to look one up tonight.
Galileo though was a firm believer in God as were many of the early modern scientific pioneers. They conducted their expirements with the understanding (essentially) that I outlined above.
And I can tell you, as a person of faith, I have heard all my life about the comparison between natural laws and spiritual laws. It has long been a subject of sermons and classes.
Galileo lived in a world where not being a believer in god ment social pariahdom, fines, damnation to hell and potentially death. His parents where theists, his friends and extended family and his daughter a nun.
Do you think he had any choice but to state that he believed in god?
Claimin that his belief in god lead to him proving the helio centric model, your saddly mistaken. Faith provably retarded his work on the subject.
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An intelligent designer would deal with breathing and eating/drinking in such a way that people where at worst less likely to choke on their food and at best, unable to. Seriously, its like spagetti junction in there.The mammalian eye is a horribly designed thing. The lens is on the wrong side! WHY DID THEY PUT IT IN THE BACK!The light-sensing cells are not just in the back, they are pointing their sensors right towards the insides of your skull instead of towards the light they're to sense. An intelligent designer would have fixed this obvious engineering error. We know any such designer would have known of the problem and had an easy fix for it, since it was done right on the octopus and squid.
There are lists of this kind of thing. They don't quite disprove a designer, since a designer could have been insane, stupid, evil, or otherwise incompetent. But intelligence is clearly not one of his traits, unless malevolence also is and the designer meant, for example, to try to kill human women when he designed their birth canal.
So then what does evolution say about this? How or why did this design come to the forefront? I mean this is the design that has made it through millions of years. Why didn't we evolve better eyes? (Or better digestive tracts, etc.)
If there is (more or less) a consensus that the presence or absence of God cannot be proven with the current evidence, then why the passionate debate to the contrary?
I don't think that consensus exists. Most believers, including those posting in this thread, are not fideists. They do not believe their position is sustained only by faith. They believe they have evidence and indeed evidence which is accessible to everybody. By contrast, non-believers like myself also rarely start out with the axiom that gods do not exist and then proceed from there. We have a collection of evidence for that thesis which we have gathered. So the tacit agreement here is not that the presence or absence of a deity cannot be determined. Rather, it's the opposite.
The natural thing to do in these situations is bring out our evidence and our reasoning and have a fair discussion, but this is complicated by the degree to which disagreement is taken as insult and by a lack of agreement on what ought to happen if the evidence in fact does lead another way.
A better case could be made by someone like myself or Samnell, being in a demographic that has been condemned and vilified by certain religious groups, but even then, the argument need only be, "Since we all do not agree on matters of religious doctrine, do not use yours to persecute me or deny me civil liberties."
Ah, but there's a rub too. Denying us our civil liberties is seen by some of the religious as an essential expression of their civil liberties.
I will point out that I am more of a humanist myself, so it's really a question for my fellow non-theists. Why, in your opinion, is this a matter of such importance?
Developing a more accurate picture of the universe is always the first goal of inquiry, so far as I'm concerned. Believers are making claims about reality, or at least the vast majority of them are. This would be true even if they took a page out of CS Lewis's book and supported gay marriage and all the other such issues despite their personal religious objections because they do not think it the place of the state to enforce their private religious strictures (as Lewis did easy divorce) and ended their opposition thereto outside of their own churches, which are not threatened in the slightest by any of the issues under contention. Or at any rate, they are no more threatened than they are by the existence of other religious groups which disagree with them.
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Galileo lived in a world where not being a believer in god ment social pariahdom, fines, damnation to hell and potentially death. His parents where theists, his friends and extended family and his daughter a nun.Do you think he had any choice but to state that he believed in god?
Claimin that his belief in god lead to him proving the helio centric model, your saddly mistaken. Faith provably retarded his work on the subject.
'Faith probably retarded his work on the subject'
That made me laugh. I mean, faith did get him burnt at the stake, after all. That's a pretty big impediment to his work.
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So then what does evolution say about this? How or why did this design come to the forefront? I mean this is the design that has made it through millions of years. Why didn't we evolve better eyes? (Or better digestive tracts, etc.)An intelligent designer would deal with breathing and eating/drinking in such a way that people where at worst less likely to choke on their food and at best, unable to. Seriously, its like spagetti junction in there.The mammalian eye is a horribly designed thing. The lens is on the wrong side! WHY DID THEY PUT IT IN THE BACK!The light-sensing cells are not just in the back, they are pointing their sensors right towards the insides of your skull instead of towards the light they're to sense. An intelligent designer would have fixed this obvious engineering error. We know any such designer would have known of the problem and had an easy fix for it, since it was done right on the octopus and squid.
There are lists of this kind of thing. They don't quite disprove a designer, since a designer could have been insane, stupid, evil, or otherwise incompetent. But intelligence is clearly not one of his traits, unless malevolence also is and the designer meant, for example, to try to kill human women when he designed their birth canal.
Because evolution deals in "good enough". As long as you survive long enough and are fit enough to pass on your genes, evolution doesn't care if you drop dead the next instant, your job's done.
One would hope a loving God wasn't quite so slipshod.
So then what does evolution say about this? How or why did this design come to the forefront? I mean this is the design that has made it through millions of years. Why didn't we evolve better eyes? (Or getter digestive tracts, etc.)
Evolution is not an intelligent designer. It has no goals and no standards. It's not trying for the best possible design, or indeed trying for anything. If the arrangement is good enough to let the genes carry on to the next generation, that's the one that's been selected for. It's all about the non-random survival (that is, some mutations will produce superior adaptations, some inferior, and the inferior adaptations will tend to die out in favor of the superior over time...though what is superior and inferior may change over time as well given varying conditions) of randomly-varying replicators. The survival of suboptimal designs which do not greatly impact reproduction is one of the things evolution predicts, actually.
This is quite the opposite of an intelligent designer, who as an engineer is looking for efficiency, logical arrangement of parts, and is obviously not constrained by past mistakes since he can always go right back to the drawing board.
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Do you think he had any choice but to state that he believed in god?
He could have kept quiet.
Instead he wrote the following: "Whatever the course of our lives, we should receive them as the highest gift from the hand of God, in which equally reposed the power to do nothing whatever for us. Indeed, we should accept misfortune not only in thanks, but in infinite gratitude to Providence, which by such means detaches us from an excessive love of Earthly things and elevates our minds to the celestial and divine.”
He very much reads like a man who believed. I would probably find myself disagreeing with some of his personal convictions in this or that doctrine of faith, but I would not think to question his sincerity.
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So then what does evolution say about this? How or why did this design come to the forefront? I mean this is the design that has made it through millions of years. Why didn't we evolve better eyes? (Or better digestive tracts, etc.)
Because evolution isn't finished. And it's not perfect either.
That said, our eyes and other parts of our body have adapted to become more suited to our environments over time. There's a good article on the Evolution of the Eye here.
The mammalian eye is a horribly designed thing. The lens is on the wrong side! WHY DID THEY PUT IT IN THE BACK!The light-sensing cells are not just in the back, they are pointing their sensors right towards the insides of your skull instead of towards the light they're to sense. An intelligent designer would have fixed this obvious engineering error. We know any such designer would have known of the problem and had an easy fix for it, since it was done right on the octopus and squid.
There are lists of this kind of thing. They don't quite disprove a designer, since a designer could have been insane, stupid, evil, or otherwise incompetent. But intelligence is clearly not one of his traits, unless malevolence also is and the designer meant, for example, to try to kill human women when he designed their birth canal.
In intelligent designer would deal with breathing and eating/drinking in such a way that people where at worst less likely to choke on their food and at best, unable to. Seriously, its like spagetti junction in there.
And don't get me started on the human knee...
You are assuming these things are without reason. The person of faith would simply suggest that we don't yet know the reason and suggest further exploration.
On the other hand, a willingness to think that I am fearfully and wonderfully made is not the same as thinking I am indestructible. The same author who said, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made," acknowledged his own frailty when he said, "Lord teach me to number my days."
To some of us, frailty is a feature, not a bug. We may not always enjoy being frail, but we know that we can allow it to strengthen and humble us.
To which we say 'yeah, yeah, so publish already'.
If your idea's stand up and play by the rules of peer review, i'll care what they are, until then, your hand waving.
Ofcause, the thing is, we already have an explination for why these things are the way they are, and it stands up to examination and is consistant with the facts.
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Do you think he had any choice but to state that he believed in god?He could have kept quiet.
Instead he wrote the following: "Whatever the course of our lives, we should receive them as the highest gift from the hand of God, in which equally reposed the power to do nothing whatever for us. Indeed, we should accept misfortune not only in thanks, but in infinite gratitude to Providence, which by such means detaches us from an excessive love of Earthly things and elevates our minds to the celestial and divine.”
He very much reads like a man who believed. I would probably find myself disagreeing with some of his personal convictions in this or that doctrine of faith, but I would not think to question his sincerity.
Wicht,
I don't question his sincerity. But a lot of believers question the scientific evidence purely because it doesn't agree with the Bible and is therefore wrong. I can understand people who have constantly butted heads with that kind of reaction to be unable to see how religion and scientific thought can coexist, even though a lot of scientists are Christians.If people don't want atheists to use the scientific method to disprove God, however misguided that use might be, believers shouldn't try to include their faith as science, either.
That made me laugh. I mean, faith did get him burnt at the stake, after all. That's a pretty big impediment to his work.
Galileo was not burned at the stake. He was given a rather suggestive tour of the Inquisition's torture chambers and kept under house arrest for the rest of his life, though. His books were prohibited, in whole and in part, until 1832. The Catholic Church officially admitted Galileo was in fact right and that a mistake had been made in 1992.
Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake. He was a heliocentrist, but also had some noncomformist religious ideas. Some argue that he got roasted more for those than heliocentrism, which I would think would make his death more an outrage to the religious.
I thought I saw a survey somewhere where the majority of scientist were theists.
Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake.
He was an arianist, was he not?
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Do you think he had any choice but to state that he believed in god?He could have kept quiet.
Instead he wrote the following: "Whatever the course of our lives, we should receive them as the highest gift from the hand of God, in which equally reposed the power to do nothing whatever for us. Indeed, we should accept misfortune not only in thanks, but in infinite gratitude to Providence, which by such means detaches us from an excessive love of Earthly things and elevates our minds to the celestial and divine.”
He very much reads like a man who believed. I would probably find myself disagreeing with some of his personal convictions in this or that doctrine of faith, but I would not think to question his sincerity.
Wicht,
I don't question his sincerity. But a lot of believers question the scientific evidence purely because it doesn't agree with the Bible and is therefore wrong. I can understand people who have constantly butted heads with that kind of reaction to be unable to see how religion and scientific thought can coexist, even though a lot of scientists are Christians.If people don't want atheists to use the scientific method to disprove God, however misguided that use might be, believers shouldn't try to include their faith as science, either.
I don't think I am substituting my faith for science, my faith in science on the other hand is founded on the idea of natural laws.
That being said, I think you will find that most believers have no problem with the scientific method. What we question is the validity of some of the unverifiable deductions made based upon the evidence.
Our position then is not that science disproves the bible but that when all the evidence is in, the bible will stand. This, I admit is faith, though I do not admit that it is an unreasoned faith. Like Galileo, I think some of the things in the Bible are written as poetry (the four corners of the earth) but there are some things in it that allude to principles we don't yet fathom as well. There is, for instance, an interesting article I was reading last week on the early expansion of the universe and the possible allusion to this in the statement that "God stretched out the heavens." I think the Bible is full of little nuggets like that that are only properly appreciated in hindsight. I am perfectly willing to admit I don't know how God did all that he did. But I am willing to take on faith that he did it.
Do you think he had any choice but to state that he believed in god?He could have kept quiet.
Instead he wrote the following: "Whatever the course of our lives, we should receive them as the highest gift from the hand of God, in which equally reposed the power to do nothing whatever for us. Indeed, we should accept misfortune not only in thanks, but in infinite gratitude to Providence, which by such means detaches us from an excessive love of Earthly things and elevates our minds to the celestial and divine.”
He very much reads like a man who believed. I would probably find myself disagreeing with some of his personal convictions in this or that doctrine of faith, but I would not think to question his sincerity.
Firstly, for all we know, that quote about is 'him keeping quiet'. With out full citation we have no idea at what point this was written, it is entirely possible that this was after his house arrest. When you've been tried for heresy, it is unwise to carry wood to the pyre.
Ofcause, I think your over estimating the ammount of 'choice' he even had. Political affiliation runs in families, he may only have believed in god because there wasn't a better option at the time and because every one he knew was christan. We simply cannot judge his sincerity or what caused it.
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Evolution is not an intelligent designer. It has no goals and no standards. It's not trying for the best possible design, or indeed trying for anything. If the arrangement is good enough to let the genes carry on to the next generation, that's the one that's been selected for. It's all about the non-random survival (that is, some mutations will produce superior adaptations, some inferior, and the inferior adaptations will tend to die out in favor of the superior over time...though what is superior and inferior may change over time as well given varying conditions) of randomly-varying replicators. The survival of suboptimal designs which do not greatly impact reproduction is one of the things evolution predicts, actually.
"will tend to die out in favor of the superior over time" -- Hasn't the general design been "good enough" for millions of years? How much more time is needed to be better? (And my eyes are getting worse.)
This is quite the opposite of an intelligent designer, who as an engineer is looking for efficiency, logical arrangement of parts, and is obviously not constrained by past mistakes since he can always go right back to the drawing board.
You're assuming that you know what the designer was going for in the first place. Why did he have to be looking for "efficiency, logical arrangement of parts", etc.? Maybe God was looking for "good enough" in that regard as well.
I thought I saw a survey somewhere where the majority of scientist were theists.
I don't have one on me, but it varies with discipline. Apparently something like 60% of mathematicians are believers. Something like 10% of evolutionary biologists are. These numbers are especially low if the question asks specifically about interventionist deities.
Which is why the various nutcase bureaus have to cook up their lists of "scientists" who don't believe in evolution through trickery (painting ordinary differences about current matters under inquiry as if it were a complete rejection of 150 years of biology) and lies (calling anybody with a degree a scientist).
I thought I saw a survey somewhere where the majority of scientist were theists.
Servays by the national acadamy of scientist routinely show that an overwelming majority of scientists are atheist, yes.
In fact, non-belief has been shown strong corilation to education is serveral other studies as well.
This is quite the opposite of an intelligent designer, who as an engineer is looking for efficiency, logical arrangement of parts, and is obviously not constrained by past mistakes since he can always go right back to the drawing board.You're assuming that you know what the designer was going for in the first place. Why did he have to be looking for "efficiency, logical arrangement of parts", etc.? Maybe God was looking for "good enough" in that regard as well.
I'm just using what the IDists tell me are their own principles. They claim to draw inference from human designers. Ok. So am I. General principles of design are general principles of design. Now if you think God was just a C- student and couldn't get into a good divinity school, that's fine. It's not what I usually here from believers, though.
I'll happily admit that drunken design, evil design, and idiot design are all theses you could support based on the evidence available. They're not parsimonious and thus should be discarded unless we have very good reason to retain them, but one could argue at least in principle that the evidence suggests them.
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Evolution is not an intelligent designer. It has no goals and no standards. It's not trying for the best possible design, or indeed trying for anything. If the arrangement is good enough to let the genes carry on to the next generation, that's the one that's been selected for. It's all about the non-random survival (that is, some mutations will produce superior adaptations, some inferior, and the inferior adaptations will tend to die out in favor of the superior over time...though what is superior and inferior may change over time as well given varying conditions) of randomly-varying replicators. The survival of suboptimal designs which do not greatly impact reproduction is one of the things evolution predicts, actually."will tend to die out in favor of the superior over time" -- Hasn't the general design been "good enough" for millions of years? How much more time is needed to be better? (And my eyes are getting worse.)
See earlier comment. For you to be a successful species, evolutionarily thinking, all you have to do is survive to pass on your genes. As long as that happens, anything afterwards is good enough. And no offence to you, Moff, but I tend to think of you as being past the general age for passing on genes to your offspring, so if your eyes are going, it's because there's no pressure to stop that. You got to the stage of passing on your genes. If those same genes mean your body collapses the day afterwards, that would be good enough from an evolutionary perspective. Basically, the energy costs of keeping your body in good shape as it gets older aren't worth it because they impair early reproductive success. Plus who wants to be competing with parents for resources? Evolution got in with built-in obsolescence generations before elctronics companies found out about it.
Hasn't the general design been "good enough" for millions of years? How much more time is needed to be better?
How ever long it takes. “Good enough” survives, so it continues. “Better” may pop up, but if “good enough” is working just fine both may continue on. Or that single “better’ may get lost in all the other “good enoughs”.
You're assuming that you know what the designer was going for in the first place. Why did he have to be looking for "efficiency, logical arrangement of parts", etc.? Maybe God was looking for "good enough" in that regard as well.
Maybe he was. But why would an omnibenevolent god?
Evolution is not an intelligent designer. It has no goals and no standards. It's not trying for the best possible design, or indeed trying for anything. If the arrangement is good enough to let the genes carry on to the next generation, that's the one that's been selected for. It's all about the non-random survival (that is, some mutations will produce superior adaptations, some inferior, and the inferior adaptations will tend to die out in favor of the superior over time...though what is superior and inferior may change over time as well given varying conditions) of randomly-varying replicators. The survival of suboptimal designs which do not greatly impact reproduction is one of the things evolution predicts, actually."will tend to die out in favor of the superior over time" -- Hasn't the general design been "good enough" for millions of years? How much more time is needed to be better? (And my eyes are getting worse.)
Well that depends on what you mean by better?
How about Tetrachromacy.|
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Do you think he had any choice but to state that he believed in god?He could have kept quiet.
Instead he wrote the following: "Whatever the course of our lives, we should receive them as the highest gift from the hand of God, in which equally reposed the power to do nothing whatever for us. Indeed, we should accept misfortune not only in thanks, but in infinite gratitude to Providence, which by such means detaches us from an excessive love of Earthly things and elevates our minds to the celestial and divine.”
He very much reads like a man who believed. I would probably find myself disagreeing with some of his personal convictions in this or that doctrine of faith, but I would not think to question his sincerity.
Wicht,
I don't question his sincerity. But a lot of believers question the scientific evidence purely because it doesn't agree with the Bible and is therefore wrong. I can understand people who have constantly butted heads with that kind of reaction to be unable to see how religion and scientific thought can coexist, even though a lot of scientists are Christians.If people don't want atheists to use the scientific method to disprove God, however misguided that use might be, believers shouldn't try to include their faith as science, either.
I don't think I am substituting my faith for science, my faith in science on the other hand is founded on the idea of natural laws.
That being said, I think you will find that most believers have no problem with the scientific method. What we question is the validity of some of the unverifiable deductions made based upon the evidence.
Our position then is not that science disproves the bible but that when all the evidence is in, the bible will stand. This, I admit is faith, though I do not admit that it is an unreasoned faith. Like Galileo, I think some of the things in the Bible are written as poetry (the four corners of the earth) but...
Wicht,
I wasn't saying you believe this. I was saying that after a lot of discussion with hardline believers who will brook nothing that is not in the Bible (Young Earth, Flood Geology, Creationism, Intelligent Design), I can easily believe that others who have had a lot of similar non-productive discussions come to the conclusion that belief and faith are incompatible. Certain believers certainly believe that, too.
Hmm. Here is an observation/question based on the direction this thread has taken lately.
If there is (more or less) a consensus that the presence or absence of God cannot be proven with the current evidence, then why the passionate debate to the contrary?
Those that have faith, of course, have it as a tenant of their beliefs to uphold their faith in the presence of adversity. I get that.
I guess it's more of a question of non-theists. Even if the evidence seems to tilt in favor of the absence of God, since his existence cannot be absolutely disproven, why spend so much energy making the case?
A better case could be made by someone like myself or Samnell, being in a demographic that has been condemned and vilified by certain religious groups, but even then, the argument need only be, "Since we all do not agree on matters of religious doctrine, do not use yours to persecute me or deny me civil liberties."
I will point out that I am more of a humanist myself, so it's really a question for my fellow non-theists. Why, in your opinion, is this a matter of such importance?
Please take the following in light of the fact that my bone of contention is mainly with fundamentalists of various persuasions. I don't generally have any bones to pick with your typical methodists, Anglicans, Catholics, Jews, Hindus, etc. except in a purely philosophical sense or about certain moral beliefs.
A) Because I keep seeing important political debates in my country (the United States) obsfucated by what seems to me to be blind allegience to the beliefs of an ancient civilization that ended almost 2000 years ago.
We are getting more and more powerful as a species and getting into more and more deadly territory (nukes, genetic engineering, climate change (even if it turns out to be mostly natural), need to feed an increasingly populated world, etc.) that requires hard headed rational thought and planning and not fallbacks on ancient books that were never designed to address these issues.
Also, on social issues, religion has been more of an impediment than a boon to what I think have been needed social changes like full rights for women and gay rights. However, I do think religion has made a major positive contribution is in civil rights for minorities in the US, or at least the black churches have.
B) Considering much progress we've made in the spheres of science, mathematics, and technology by applying rational thought to these things, I believe that we can also make greater progress in the moral and ethical spheres by using our minds instead of pouring over texts written thousands of years ago. We already have (see comments about women's and gay rights above).
C) Fundamentalists seem to have taken on an increasingly anti-science stance as a result of their efforts to get creationism into the classroom on an equal footing with evolution (BTW I don't object to discussions or debates on creationism or ID in philosophy or comparative religions classes). Sorry, I respect their desire to believe what they want, but the country's current economic and military position is the result of the application of the scientific method to a wide variety of fields, and anything that undermines that is a threat to the well being of the country (the same can be said for Europe, Australia, up and coming India and China, Japan, etc. but they all have their own issues).
D) Outside of the Christian world: 9/11, the Taliban, Hindu vs. Muslim (both sides have gotten rather nasty there), etc. etc. etc. Nuff said.
E) George Bush (sorry, I know this isn't a political thread, but I couldn't resist).
(calling anybody with a degree a scientist).
For a more narrowly-focused example, the list of "100 scientists who doubt evolution" includes mostly software engineers and the like. In contrast, the list of "scientists named Steve who support evolution" numbers over 1,000 and counting. Then again, as John Paul II showed us, being a Christian does not prevent one from accepting evolution.
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Well that depends on what you mean by better?
How about Tetrachromacy.
I want zoom, split screen, and x-ray vision.
Really? This is what they are saying? "Yeah, this is what I'd do so it must be what the Almighty was thinking..."
Seems like pretty poor logic to me.
Are you suggestion we can not know god’s plan? Then how do we know he loves us?
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As for the 'perfect' design argument, ectopic pregnancies anyone?The mammalian eye is a horribly designed thing. The lens is on the wrong side! WHY DID THEY PUT IT IN THE BACK!
And don't get me started on appendices...
Been awhile since I last chimed in with anything to say but your statment opens a question I may have asked before.
If we evolved then why did we evolve into such weak creatures ill suited for survival? Our vital organs are exposed to attack from predators, we have no natural weapons, our young are helpless for years, and we cannot deal with temprature extremes. I know the most common answer to this is our minds/technology make up for this, and yes they do... now. But how about thousands of years ago? I would call our current forms a de-evolution from basic primates, at least physicly. I would be interested to hear from anyone with an education in this area so I could better understand the evolution theory.