maybe I should quit my faith and deny God to everyone
Personally, I kind of think God is like one of those writers of British black comedies. He dreams up the most bizarre, pointless, annoying scenarios and then laughs his ass off, saying to the angels "You wouldn't believe what I made Mrs Smith do the other day..."
_________________
"Caravan is the name of my history, and my life an extraordinary adventure."
~ Amin Maalouf
Taking a break.
cyberscan
Veteran
Joined: 16 Apr 2008
Age: 58
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,296
Location: Near Panama, City Florida
Isn't evolution science, not religion? I would have no problem believing that God created the world we now know through evolution, which does not clash, in my opinion, with the bible. The Christian faith won't implode if the six days of genesis are considered to be allegorical.
However, I think there is more, or rather less, to evolution than people like Richard Dawkins purports. "Evolution" has only been proven to occur within a species on a minor scale, not inter-species. Thus the fossil record shows a very "staccato" development and no missing link has been found to prove that evolution works on a large and random, inter-species, scale. At that point it's all just theorizing. Someone might disprove me though, I don't know more than what little I've read on this subject.
Please excuse my digression. I'll go chastise myself for my impunity.
Evolution meets the very definition of religion which is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe. Religion is a set of beliefs that explain how we got here. Evolution attempts to do that.
_________________
I am AUTISTIC - Always Unique, Totally Interesting, Straight Talking, Intelligently Conversational.
I am also the author of "Tech Tactics Money Saving Secrets" and "Tech Tactics Publishing and Production Secrets."
Amnos, evolution of one species into another has been observed among bacteria. The problem with observing it among most other species is the sheer length of time that it takes for most macrofauna to reproduce - even fruit flies take a couple of days per generation. Given the amount of time that it takes for environmental pressures to make a given species inadequate, giving mutants room to survive, it's not surprising that the phenomenon hasn't been observed in the wild. However, by comparing fossilized remains of earlier creatures to their modern versions, the changes can be observed - for instance, the ancestors of the modern rhinoceros were quite furry (as revealed by samples trapped in mud), but as the planet warmed at the end of the last glaciation, a nearly-hairless mutant became better able to survive, thus living longer, reproducing more, and eventually displacing their hairy ancestors.
Cyberscan, unchanging belief is one of the characteristics of religion, not science. Yes, a less-complete fossil record had led to incorrect conclusions about evolutionary paths before - paths that have been altered in the light of later discoveries. Your conclusion is akin to asserting that since "natural philosophers" once believed that fire was caused by substances that gave off phlogiston, and later learned that fire is actually caused by combination with a previously-undiscovered gas called "oxygen", we can therefore dismiss all of chemistry as "a belief".
As for the statement earlier about "disproving atheism", of course you can't disprove atheism. It's a negative statement - an assertion that there is no God - and thus by its nature unprovable. (After all, to disprove the assertion that a being does or does not stand outside the universe - a literally supernatural being - it would be necessary to stand outside the universe oneself, in order to make the observation. Thus, in order to attempt to disprove the existence of God, it would be necessary for one to become God. Rather a pretty paradox, really...)
_________________
Sodium is a metal that reacts explosively when exposed to water. Chlorine is a gas that'll kill you dead in moments. Together they make my fries taste good.
cyberscan
Veteran
Joined: 16 Apr 2008
Age: 58
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,296
Location: Near Panama, City Florida
Cyberscan, unchanging belief is one of the characteristics of religion, not science. Yes, a less-complete fossil record had led to incorrect conclusions about evolutionary paths before - paths that have been altered in the light of later discoveries. Your conclusion is akin to asserting that since "natural philosophers" once believed that fire was caused by substances that gave off phlogiston, and later learned that fire is actually caused by combination with a previously-undiscovered gas called "oxygen", we can therefore dismiss all of chemistry as "a belief".
My beliefs have changed drastically over many years. This includes the many years that I have believed in Scripture. The mainstream religions are also much different today than they were only a 100 years ago. I too, am a man of science. I still am. I have studied science all of my life. It was the study of thermonuclear dynamics in the Navy that led me to disover the assumptions made (correct or incorrect) in the nuclear or radio dating of fossils. I've studied many other areas of science as well. I agree, theories change and so do beliefs. In fact, a theory is a belief or a speculation.
_________________
I am AUTISTIC - Always Unique, Totally Interesting, Straight Talking, Intelligently Conversational.
I am also the author of "Tech Tactics Money Saving Secrets" and "Tech Tactics Publishing and Production Secrets."
That depends on what definition of religion you work with. If religion is defined as the worship of a God for example, it doesn't fit all that well with evolution.
Then what about the Cambrian explosion, the fairly sudden appearance of complex species in the fossil record?
The "Cambrian explosion" came after the pre-Cambrian mass extinction event (best guess as to the cause of that was an asteroidal impact, similar to the one blamed for the end of the Cretaceous period). The mass extinction left a great many ecological "slots" open, and new forms evolved to fill them.
Remember also that "suddenly" in this context is meant in the geological sense - that's tens of thousands of years to you and me.
_________________
Sodium is a metal that reacts explosively when exposed to water. Chlorine is a gas that'll kill you dead in moments. Together they make my fries taste good.
Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
From Lord of the Rings Quotes, Film
_________________
~~ the phoenix
"It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine." -- REM
.......
.....
...
Maybe the secret to overcoming adversity is finding something even more intense than our misery, and focus on that.
.
Last edited by alba on 01 Sep 2009, 7:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.
