How Darwin caused atheism

The adaptation of species to their environment does at least look as though an intelligence designed them to fit their environment; whereas although you can always imagine a thunder-god being responsible for the lightning, it doesn't particularly look as though it's intelligently directed --- lightning does not, for example, exclusively smite sinners, or we might begin to wonder if it was intelligently directed.So although it was always possible to proffer "goddidit" as an explanation for anything you didn't understand, only adaptation seemed to require such an explanation. In that case the supposition of an intelligent motivating force was not merely an argument from ignorance --- it was, at the very least, an argument from analogy.So although people did ascribe all sorts of natural phenomena to the gods, there was this one case --- adaptation --- where doing so was not completely arbitrary and stupid. And then along came Darwin and Wallace with a better explanation, and suddenly the only remotely good reason (from a scientific standpoint) for believing in an invisible anthropomorphic entity was without merit.

Thank you, much obliged.

No, it hasn't been falsified. It is not a case of inflation or singularity - they are in entirely different categories of concept. Guth obviously has his place in the annals of cosmology, and inflation is a leading contender for solving a number of the issues with the Big bang model, but the language he uses in your link is awful: both misleading and innacurate. I would look elsewhere for details on modern cosmology; Guth seems to have lost perspective.For example, is non-sequiturial nonsense

Hi, Abe. If, in the future, I become a true atheist, I think I would cite the Theory of Evolution as the primary reason for it. I think Dr Adequate's explanation in Message 76 is quite good.On top of what Dr Adequate said, I would add the following: current understanding of physics and chemistry, at best, rule out a few of God's "parlor tricks" (throwing fire from the sky, turning people to salt, etc.); but evolution challenges the very core of our relationship to God. People tend to care about what is closest to them, and our birthright is therefore a more fundamental part of our belief system than the magic magical powers that God has.Granted, ToE alone isn't enough to take me all the way to atheism: when looking at the complexity and functionality of life, I still have my moments of incredulity that mutation and natural selection did it all, and begin to wonder if, indeed, some sort of guiding intelligence was needed for some of it. Usually anymore, I'm able to remember that my incredulity isn't evidence for anything, but sometimes it takes a lot more will power than other times.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Taq. I don't know that I entirely agree with you.If we define "mutations" narrowly to refer only to changes in DNA across generations, then I suppose I wouldn't be able to argue much. But, I think such a narrow definition would serve little purpose outside of defining abiogenesis and evolution as separate things.Surely the first replicator also had to emerge from a series of random chemical changes that were selected for at each step by a fitness filter of some kind. While this would differ in several specific ways from the mechanics of ToE, the overall process is arguably similar enough to be considered an instance of the same general phenomenon.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Thanks man, but I'm going to need a lot more than that. The "old" version of the big bang depicts all the matter currently making up the universe as being compressed into an area smaller than whatever, a nucleus for example. This is a classic black hole of enormous quantity, and I don't see any way for that matter to ever get out.Guth's version begins without this excess matter, and uses "false vacuum" to produce the mass of crap and expansion and whatnot that we observe as the universe, in a process that certainly seems to my layman math-impaired thinking to correspond in some sense to the wonders of "vacuum energy".Obviously based on your response I need a lot of work. Fine, where do I start? And why am I starting now, rather than one of the other times that I have posted this basic line of crap right in front of you?* As, for example
Message 7
Message 48 Edited by Iblis, : added links

Agreed, but then I looked at the thread title and realised that this was not the place No, this is a popular misconception and is incorrect - but any more than that will have to await the correct thread. Where do you want to take it?

Here, Message 174, in Where did the matter and energy come from?.Back on this topic, what do you think of Dr. A's point about evolution taking away the last reasonable defense of the existence of deity?I keep eying it, I do believe it's the nicest exposition of what was likely to have been Abe's point in this thread that we can expect. But I'm still pondering on whether it really contributes much to atheism per se, as opposed to just increasing its social acceptability.

I wouldn't do that unless you are interested in being wrong.Evolution has nothing to do with the existance of God. God may have made you But He diden't make your body. Like both the atheists and theists here you are trapped into thinking you ARE a body.Have you looked everywhere in the physical universe for evidence of God's existance?If you have you will be able to answer the following questions, if you can't you don't know shit about yourself or God.1.) Tell me 40 things that happened to you before the age of 4 and how they affected your thinking or health.2.) Tell me what it was like to be born.3.) Tell me when/how you became a sentient being.The answers to all these questions exist in your mind, a part of the physical universe.If you wish to play the game of "I'm an idiot like everyone else", go right ahead.Or you could answer the questions.If you become an atheist basest on the TOE, you are a fool.

petrophysics1, do you think, if there was no theory of evolution or any other natural theory to explain life, then the existence of God would seem at least a little more probable?

Your point is ... obscure.

NO!God's existence has nothing to do with bodies or how they came to be.Rise above thinking of yourself as a piece of meat.There is YOU, and then there is your mind and body. God didn't make those last two. Get out of the idea that he did.Then you will understand my POV.

petrophysics1, do you think that the theory of evolution does not at all help to enable the paradigm that we are all pieces of meat--i.e. mammals with merely greater mental ability than livestock? That is my paradigm. Does the theory of evolution have no effect on that way of thinking?

Only if you can't answer the three questions I asked.Which you didn't do. In fact they never even occured to you.It took me 17 years to be able to remember being born, you never even thought about it.Answer the three questions I asked or shut up.If you can answer them you are close to understanding that God exists.If you can't and don't look you are a person who doesn't know shit about themselves or God.So stop posting like you know something.Edited by petrophysics1, : No reason given.

I'm sorry but what the hell do your really silly questions have to do with any god, God or GOD?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!