[TurboCretin]

(Original post by bordercollies10)
Evolution suggests that you can put some watch parts into a bag, shake the bag for a few billion years and be able to pull out a fully working watch at the end of the process (given an infinite number of chances, yes it would happen) - but how can humans evolve from fish? Fish lay eggs and don't care for their young. Plus why are there still monkeys? - this is for those who beleive in the verbatim teachings of Darwin...

I'm responding to this part because it's the part I feel best able to in limited time. First of all, the watch analogy is invalid because a watch does not function until it is a watch. The same is not true of living things: we are complex, but not all of our ancestors were. It also ignores the fact that evolution works by playing with what it already has, not by jamming a liver and a pancreas together to make something that might limp on until it can find an eye or a lung. That's the analogy the Watchmaker one truly makes, and it's absurd.

Second of all, we did not evolve from anything which is currently alive. It's an obvious statement, but one which needs to be taken seriously. Everything else is just as much a modern animal as we are. It's precisely the same as looking at another great-grandchild of your great-grandparents and saying "I'm his son? Preposterous" and proceeding to question why his side of the family is still around. Imagining that we evolved from modern fish, or modern monkeys, is to misunderstand the nature of evolution and derives from our tendency to think of ourselves as a uniquely 'advanced' form of life on this planet.

That's some brief groundwork. As for your specific question, it's not possible to properly answer it because 'monkey' has no scientific meaning. You're subsuming modern monkeys and our common ancestors under a single term, which is where the problem arises. Chimps appear to have undergone fewer morphological changes from our common ancestor with them because that blueprint works for that environment, but to equate them with the ancestor on that basis would be to play a trick on oneself. We are an aberration that worked, as are the chimps themselves. Many didn't.

[Billy Pilgrim]

Various logicians have attempted ontological proofs of God, for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6...ological_proof.

[aljolson]

(Original post by bordercollies10)
At least you couldn't contradict anything that I typed...

I was'nt aiming to contradict, but this is just a chat room really. I wonder if you talk like that in everyday life, or are just trying to impress with a quasi-philosophical blog. I actually got the gist of what you were saying, but I had to read it three times.

[Good bloke]

(Original post by bordercollies10)
Theism isn't logical?
Suppose there was a stick that was moved by the wind caused by the sea ad infinitum - eventually you are going to come to an unchanged mover (a causer of all things caused). Well, no. Eventually you are going to end up with a very well worn-down stick, then no stick at all. From an a priori perspective, it could be argued that God can begat do you mean beget? (give rise to) anything bar another God (because, by defintion, God is perfect) Why couldn't a god create another god?. Good wouldn't be without evil and evil is really just the reduced concentration of goodness Are you positing homeopathic goodness here? (by which complies with the moral parameters of God who has the standard of holliness Aren't holly trees and bushes all grown to a common EU standard of holliness these days?) - and that is a result of finitude what is this word? (the opposite of light isn't dark and the opposite of heat is not cold) Doesn't that depend on the context?. Evolution suggests that you can put some watch parts into a bag, shake the bag for a few billion years and be able to pull out a fully working watch at the end of the process no it doesn't - it has nothing to say about inanimate objects (given an infinite number of chances, yes it would happen) - but how can humans evolve from fish? Fish lay eggs and don't care for their young You should study the life cycle of the sea horse if you believe this . Plus why are there still monkeys? Why are there still bacteria and other microbes? Because thy are well-suited to their environment. The same applies to monkeys - evolution does not say that newly-evolved species necessarily replace their ancestors. - this is for those who beleive in the verbatim teachings of Darwin....
By the very defintion of dualism of mind and matter (think Decartes!!) the cognition is attributed to the immortal, immaterial soul which has the ability to transcend this entity. By the very process of electrical modulation and demodulation, the electrical signals that pulsate along the axons and dendrites can be changed (therefore you could be immersed into an alternate reality and decieved). This is the sort of pseudo-scientific gibberish that New Scientist devotes its Feedback column to laughing at each week.
...but I'm just giving you guys some food for thought...Or a source of amusement

You really should learn to re-read and correct what you write before hitting the post button.

[bordercollies10]

(Original post by TurboCretin)
I'm responding to this part because it's the part I feel best able to in limited time. First of all, the watch analogy is invalid because a watch does not function until it is a watch. The same is not true of living things: we are complex, but not all of our ancestors were. It also ignores the fact that evolution works by playing with what it already has, not by jamming a liver and a pancreas together to make something that might limp on until it can find an eye or a lung. That's the analogy the Watchmaker one truly makes, and it's absurd.

Second of all, we did not evolve from anything which is currently alive. It's an obvious statement, but one which needs to be taken seriously. Everything else is just as much a modern animal as we are. It's precisely the same as looking at another great-grandchild of your great-grandparents and saying "I'm his son? Preposterous" and proceeding to question why his side of the family is still around. Imagining that we evolved from modern fish, or modern monkeys, is to misunderstand the nature of evolution and derives from our tendency to think of ourselves as a uniquely 'advanced' form of life on this planet.

That's some brief groundwork. As for your specific question, it's not possible to properly answer it because 'monkey' has no scientific meaning. You're subsuming modern monkeys and our common ancestors under a single term, which is where the problem arises. Chimps appear to have undergone fewer morphological changes from our common ancestor with them because that blueprint works for that environment, but to equate them with the ancestor on that basis would be to play a trick on oneself. We are an aberration that worked, as are the chimps themselves. Many didn't.

I find it difficult to fathom the process of evolution given that this universe has existed for infinite (we're only ever going to speak a priori but to decline the existence of God - in an absolute way - is to decline even the big bang theory, where would all that matter and energy come from? To accept the big bang theory is to accept that matter is finite and that time is finite). I'm not advocating that there is a correct doctrine of belief to build faith onto (thus harnessing an object of communication) but I have to decline polytheism (beleif in >1 god, therefore the deities would be finite) and pantheism.
Your point about the liver/pancreas "chimera" sounds pretty similar to a proposition made by an aincient Greek philosopher at one time (I forget which one)...
I hope that all who read this can at least entertain the points that I made (I tend to be more of a computer scientist at the best of times)...

[Good bloke]

(Original post by bordercollies10)
I find it difficult to fathom the process of evolution given that this universe has existed for infinite That is not what physicists generally believe (we're only ever going to speak a priori but to decline the existence of God - in an absolute way - is to decline even the big bang theory, Why? where would all that matter and energy come from? Where indeed? Where did the god come from, though? To accept the big bang theory is to accept that matter is finite and that time is finite). Is it? I'm not advocating that there is a correct doctrine of belief to build faith onto (thus harnessing an object of communication) but I have to decline polytheism (beleif in >1 god, Why? If there is one god, that indicates a predisposition for gods to exist so having more than one seems a good bet if there are any at all. The god of the Bible seems to believe there are others, doesn't he? therefore the deities would be finite) and pantheism.
Your point about the liver/pancreas "chimera" sounds pretty similar to a proposition made by an aincient Greek philosopher at one time (I forget which one)...
I hope that all who read this can at least entertain the points that I made (I tend to be more of a computer scientist at the best of times)...

What are you at the worst of times?

[bordercollies10]

(Original post by Good bloke)
What are you at the worst of times?

You would like to know that, wouldn't you? I beleive saying so would digress from the conversation, so I'd rather not say (but since you asked, I help out at a church and I write software)....

[TurboCretin]

(Original post by bordercollies10)
I find it difficult to fathom the process of evolution given that this universe has existed for infinite (we're only ever going to speak a priori but to decline the existence of God - in an absolute way - is to decline even the big bang theory, where would all that matter and energy come from? To accept the big bang theory is to accept that matter is finite and that time is finite). I'm not advocating that there is a correct doctrine of belief to build faith onto (thus harnessing an object of communication) but I have to decline polytheism (beleif in >1 god, therefore the deities would be finite) and pantheism.
Your point about the liver/pancreas "chimera" sounds pretty similar to a proposition made by an aincient Greek philosopher at one time (I forget which one)...
I hope that all who read this can at least entertain the points that I made (I tend to be more of a computer scientist at the best of times)...

What does any of this have to do with evolution? I disagree with a lot of this anyway, but GoodBloke has pre-empted me there.

[bordercollies10]

(Original post by TurboCretin)
What does any of this have to do with evolution? I disagree with a lot of this anyway, but GoodBloke has pre-empted me there.

Well if thre is an infinite number of chances and an infinite amount of time for each then, by the mathematics of chance and possibilities, the variables that affect how certain things interact with each other will be so that the process of evolution can start and come to be what it is today (but that is something I have come to decline as a personal belief)...

[py0alb]

Remember children, god is transcendental, which is to say that theists can make whatever outrageous claims they like about him and you're not allowed to point out how stupid and contradictory they are because god doesn't obey your rules, dude. god is a free-thinkin motha****a. the rules of logic? no thanks bra. the concept of evidence based reasoning? no way jose.

[TurboCretin]

(Original post by bordercollies10)
Well if thre is an infinite number of chances and an infinite amount of time for each then, by the mathematics of chance and possibilities, the variables that affect how certain things interact with each other will be so that the process of evolution can start and come to be what it is today (but that is something I have come to decline as a personal belief)...

Why are you starting from premises we know to be false? I'm just finding this all pretty puzzling. Life hasn't been around an infinite amount of time, and evolution isn't wholly random. Variation appears to occur randomly, as a by-product of mis-copying genetic code, but that is the extent of the involvement of chance in the process.

[Safiyyah95]

Why is it either God or the Big Bang? Why can't God's means of creating the world be the Big Bang and Evolution? Science doesn't have to disprove God.

[py0alb]

(Original post by Safiyyah95)
Why is it either God or the Big Bang? Why can't God's means of creating the world be the Big Bang and Evolution? Science doesn't have to disprove God.

Well it could be, there's no way of proving that it isn't (currently). But that's a very, very vague claim, and doesn't tell us anything whatsoever about the nature of whatever it was that started the big bang, certainly nothing concrete enough to be able to say "I believe in x" without having indulged in embarrasingly naive levels of wishful thinking.


If science has taught us anything over the past 10,000 years, it is that its a lot more beneficial to try and actually work out what's really going on rather than just making stuff up and then pretending you know it for sure. Every single useful thing mankind has achieved has been through trying to figure stuff out. Religion is the opposite of trying to figure stuff out. Religion is saying "stop wasting your time rubbing those sticks together, we already know that fire comes from the great sun-demon". If we had listened to the religiously inclined, humans would have become extinct many thousands of years ago. If we listen to them much more, there is still time for that to happen. The great war against stupidity and superstition is not won as long as religions survive.

[TimmonaPortella]

(Original post by Ignoramus)
People shouldn't necessarily become religious because they believe in God or want to follow a doctrine of any sort. They should do so because they care about the ethics, the culture or the community behind religion, and they should take from religion what they can and leave the rest. But all the same, they should try experiencing such communities, even if they have no intention of joining them. They may surprise themselves.

The above sounds logical to me.

To concentrate for a moment on the "ethics", if the person who is entering the religion approves of those ethics anyway, what role is the religion performing? I can't see how one can be said to be religious without believing a core doctrine of the religion they purport to follow -- in Christianity the divinity of Jesus and, even before this, the existence of god.

(Original post by james22)
There is nothing logical about religion because obviously god exists outside the laws of logic.

Nonsense. This is such a tiresome attempt to exclude religion from questions of reason or proof. "X is incomprehensible, therefore x exists" does not follow. "X operates outside of logic, therefore X exists" does not follow. Perhaps god may operate outside of logic. You may not. You cannot state a theory that something doesn't need logical proof and thereby absolve yourself of the requirement for logical proof. The argument is purely circular.

(Original post by Safiyyah95)
Why is it either God or the Big Bang? Why can't God's means of creating the world be the Big Bang and Evolution? Science doesn't have to disprove God.

Science can't disprove god because god is defined such that he can't be disproved by any means whatever. Anytime where any proof is brought against the existence of god, the model is altered to make the proof no longer proof. Eventually the concept of "god" reduces into one which is wholly unfalsifiable.

edit:

(Original post by py0alb)
Remember children, god is transcendental, which is to say that theists can make whatever outrageous claims they like about him and you're not allowed to point out how stupid and contradictory they are because god doesn't obey your rules, dude. god is a free-thinkin motha****a. the rules of logic? no thanks bra. the concept of evidence based reasoning? no way jose.

Humph, you put it better than me.

[Safiyyah95]

(Original post by py0alb)
Well it could be, there's no way of proving that it isn't (currently). But that's a very, very vague claim, and doesn't tell us anything whatsoever about the nature of whatever it was that started the big bang, certainly nothing concrete enough to be able to say "I believe in x" without having indulged in embarrasingly naive levels of wishful thinking.


If science has taught us anything over the past 10,000 years, it is that its a lot more beneficial to try and actually work out what's really going on rather than just making stuff up and then pretending you know it for sure. Every single useful thing mankind has achieved has been through trying to figure stuff out. Religion is the opposite of trying to figure stuff out. Religion is saying "stop wasting your time rubbing those sticks together, we already know that fire comes from the great sun-demon". If we had listened to the religiously inclined, humans would have become extinct many thousands of years ago. If we listen to them much more, there is still time for that to happen. The great war against stupidity and superstition is not won as long as religions survive.

But why are you putting all religions together like it's just one big religion? I think it's really unfair to all religions to put them all in the same box. I'm a muslim, and before you judge me based on things you might have seen or heard, my belief, based on the Qur'an is to keep learning and finding out new things and to seek knowledge. I love science and scientific discoveries, and that love stems from what my religion teaches me, funnily enough. I agree that science has taught that us that it's more beneficial to figure out things, but my religion has also taught me that. Which is why I'm confused as to why Science and Religion are being forced apart so much.

[py0alb]

(Original post by Safiyyah95)
But why are you putting all religions together like it's just one big religion? I think it's really unfair to all religions to put them all in the same box. I'm a muslim, and before you judge me based on things you might have seen or heard, my belief, based on the Qur'an is to keep learning and finding out new things and to seek knowledge. I love science and scientific discoveries, and that love stems from what my religion teaches me, funnily enough. I agree that science has taught that us that it's more beneficial to figure out things, but my religion has also taught me that. Which is why I'm confused as to why Science and Religion are being forced apart so much.

What has your religion taught you than science and secular morality would not have done?

[Safiyyah95]

(Original post by TimmonaPortella)
To concentrate for a moment on the "ethics", if the person who is entering the religion approves of those ethics anyway, what role is the religion performing? I can't see how one can be said to be religious without believing a core doctrine of the religion they purport to follow -- in Christianity the divinity of Jesus and, even before this, the existence of god.



Nonsense. This is such a tiresome attempt to exclude religion from questions of reason or proof. "X is incomprehensible, therefore x exists" does not follow. "X operates outside of logic, therefore X exists" does not follow. Perhaps god may operate outside of logic. You may not. You cannot state a theory that something doesn't need logical proof and thereby absolve yourself of the requirement for logical proof. The argument is purely circular.



Science can't disprove god because god is defined such that he can't be disproved by any means whatever. Anytime where any proof is brought against the existence of god, the model is altered to make the proof no longer proof. Eventually the concept of "god" reduces into one which is wholly unfalsifiable.

edit:

Humph, you put it better than me.

I agree with you. I don't think Science can ever disprove God because God could still always be above and beyond what our concept of 'God' is. If there is a God and He created this entire universe, can we really say that our minds would be comparable to His? I also see how 'science' can't prove God in the sense of seeing the absolute fact with your eyes. But I believe in God and I believe in Science. I think it's ridiculous to say, I believe that God created the world therefore there was no Big Bang and Evolution does not exist. Which is why, I don't see why the idea of God and Science can't go together.

[Good bloke]

(Original post by Safiyyah95)
I'm confused as to why Science and Religion are being forced apart so much.

Are you unaware of the controversy among both Christians and Moslems about evolution, caused by scientifically unsubstantiated religious beliefs that a god created man? Or the unscientific belief by many religious people (Moslems and Christians alike) that Earth was created by a god several thousand years ago, contrary to all the credible scientific evidence?

[bordercollies10]

(Original post by TurboCretin)
Why are you starting from premises we know to be false? I'm just finding this all pretty puzzling. Life hasn't been around an infinite amount of time, and evolution isn't wholly random. Variation appears to occur randomly, as a by-product of mis-copying genetic code, but that is the extent of the involvement of chance in the process.

Randomly? There's always going to be a variable that will influence the outcome of a process...

However something I think people have to remember is that "chance" is not a force - it is a term used to ascribe variables in relation to all of the possibilities and/or outcomes that are possible (i.e. what are the chances of x occuring if z=a+b?). Theologically, God has been reported - in scripture (think Esther and Mordecai in the OT if you're a Christian - Mordcai said "such a time as this" which implied a sense of providence) - to have inspired those who have succesfully harnessed an object of communication to do x because y would happen if x were to occur (and from an utiltairian perspective, y would probably bring the greatest joy to those who beleieve - which would tie in nicely with most of the theories about the ethical implications of monothistic doctrine). I'm not trying to inflict my religion onto anybody here (I believe I was justified in my reference to the aforementioned bible parable) however I am advocating that things just do not happen ad lib in this world.

[Safiyyah95]

(Original post by py0alb)
What has your religion taught you than science and secular morality would not have done?

I don't think you understand me though. I'm saying that science teaches us how nature works, and how the universe works. And it doesn't matter what scientific discoveries are found, my priority, as a human being, not just a Muslim, is to learn and seek knowledge. Because humans are curious and we have to know things. We shouldn't just just blindly follow without questioning, and that is something that I've learnt from my religion. The fact that I believe in God, should in no way mean that I should disagree with discoveries of the Universe. Because they don't disprove God. And because they're facts.