Evolution falsifies God/s?

Well, what faceman said was: If he comes back, one of the things he has to decide is how much evolution disproves the existence of God. Nowadays it seems like creationists admit the evolution of species and genera but not families, so presumably he'll have to argue that the latter, but not the former, disprove the existence of God. You say that we have an "equivocation problem", but this can be perfectly solved by faceman saying what he meant when he said "for evolution to be true, there can be no God".

Right. When you exclude the Gospel of Thomas, the Book of Judith, and the Epistle of the Apostles from the Bible, who knows where it will all end? You have to believe everything, or you can't believe anything at all. That's just logic.

This thread is about theology, if you want to be wrong about genetics you should start a new thread.

Well, you know, a thread's a thread. This one's about whether God and evolution are compatible, people aren't meant to turn it into a discussion of "how 'bout them Mets?" or whatever else drifts into their heads. If you really want a discussion of whether genetics works in the way you've made up in your head or in the way directly observed by geneticists, then I really think you should start a thread on that topic.

But it has been found to be true, and Christianity continues to exist even among people who know this. Well, yes, obviously. Again, this is not a hypothetical question. We are not merely discussing what would happen if that dangerous young radical Darwin ever persuades people to take his ideas seriously. D'y'know, the feller openly says that he hopes the North will win the Civil War? I can't see that happening, not while Robert E. Lee commands the Confederate Army. Anyway, Darwin's radical new notions ever become the cornerstone of biology, some time in the far distant future, like the early 21st century, then it will be the ruination of religion, I tell you. Our moral values will collapse and young ladies will start riding penny-farthing bicycles in the public streets ...... well, you get my point.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Yeah, you would have to say that. But there are zillions of people who know otherwise, and continue to believe in God.And after all, how hard is that? People manage to reconcile the existence of God with all the cruelty and suffering in the world, with malaria and the Holocaust and tapeworms and Stalin's purges and leprosy and "Keeping Up With The Kardashians". You look at all that, and you manage to believe that the Universe is under the complete control of an entity who totally loves all humankind. Then someone comes along and suggests that your ancestors were monkeys, and you say, no, that's impossible, God could not let that be. Well, as Jesus put it, who swallows a camel but strains at a gnat? But you should bear in mind that you're completely wrong.

I don't need an invisible friend in order to bemoan things. It comes naturally to me. Why would it be important what things are made of? If I discovered that people were 60% zinc, it wouldn't make me value them any less.How about you? Would the same person, doing and saying the same things, become more valuable if he wasn't made out of protons and neutrons and electrons, but some sort of not-quite-stuff without substance or mass? Would that also apply to things other than people: would that increase the worth of a couch, for example, or a sandwich, in your estimation?

But animals do care, they have a sense of fairness and exhibit altruism. And they do it all without reading the Bible. If you like, I'll dig up some of the many experiments done on monkeys. As to what benefit honesty brings, try spend the next week or so being dishonest in all your interpersonal transactions and see how you get on. It won't just be God who ends up pissed at you, so will everyone you meet. Well, again, I don't see how things would be less valuable if they were made of stardust. Actually, it sounds kinda cool, doesn't it?What you mean by intrinsic value, and why you think this would be conferred by being made in God's image, which is an extrinsic factor, you don't explain.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

And yet observation of the real world shows no such thing, proving that the computer model isn't any good.You may recall that scientists once modeled the flight of bees and found that their model showed that bees couldn't fly. Because people are idiots, this is generally reported as "haha, silly scientists claimed to have proved that bees can't fly". In fact, what they claimed to have proved was that there was some important factor missing from their model.The author of that "paper", however, does not exhibit the same degree of sense. No, he offered that as a counterexample to your specific claim that "Natural selection does not clean that gene mess up." You didn't ask for a proof of macroevolution, which will be found in the fossil record, molecular phylogeny, biogeography, morphology, etc.And this is a typical creationist debating tactic. You ask a question or make a statement to which the best reply is a direct observation of microevolution, and then you say "Aha, that doesn't prove macroevolution, is that the best you've got?" No. No. And now you're being wrong with paranoia thrown in. Apart from anything else, RAZD does apparently believe in God: his sig informs you that the D in RAZD stands for "deist". And some of the evolutionists here (not to mention the real world) are not merely deists but staunch Christians, how does your hypothesis account for them? Are they just supporting evolution in order to deny the God that in fact they worship and adore?And what are you to make of atheists like me, who will insist that evolution is perfectly compatible with God, that they are separate questions, and that anyone who abandoned theism as a consequence of acknowledging evolution would be a damn fool? Clearly I don't support evolution in order to deny the existence of God, since I freely admit that it would be worthless for that purpose.Moreover, if we all "knew" that evolution was flawed, why the heck would we voluntarily participate in a forum where it comes under continual attack and scrutiny? It would be like someone who knows he's tone-deaf appearing on American Idol, or a woman who's certain that she's hideous entering a beauty pageant.One does not expect you to know much about (for example) genetics, but a little basic insight into human nature should not be too much to ask.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

To clarify my previous remarks, let's think about the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic value. Consider an object such as a pen. Its intrinsic value is that one can write with it. But it can also have an extrinsic value --- it could, for example, have been made by Leonardo Da Vinci, or used by Benjamin Franklin to sign the Declaration of Independence. That would make it worth millions, even if it was busted and couldn't write, in which case it would have no intrinsic value.(We can easily discern the difference by noting that a pen that was exactly identical, even molecule for molecule, to Da Vinci's pen, but which wasn't his, would have the same intrinsic value but no extrinsic value.)So likewise the intrinsic value of a man is what he's like as a man, what he says and does, thinks and feels. When you suggest that the same man would have a different value according to whether he was made by God in his image or formed by natural processes out of stardust, you are necessarily talking about extrinsic value, just as you would be if you said that the same pen would have a different value according to whether it was made by Da Vinci or someone else.And when you imply that a man would have no value without this extrinsic value of being made by God, this necessarily implies that humans have no intrinsic value. I'm not sure that that's where you wanted to go with this.But if you will admit that humans have an intrinsic value, then obviously I can value them for that.

I don't think yawning is altruistic anyway.You might start here. I don't think much of the morality of the researchers, but the rhesus monkeys demonstrated altruism to the point of heroic fortitude. Well, that seems like a very arbitrary declaration. If someone else were to say to me "Things would be less valuable without nucleosynthesis, because then we wouldn't be made of stardust" how would I choose between you? Some of it does, because it's people. I'm especially fond of the bit that's me ... When it started thinking and feeling, I guess. I don't think that's particularly arbitrary. It would be silly, after all, to be concerned about the feelings of a rock, because it doesn't have any.And I don't see that it's more arbitrary than the criterion of whose image something is made in. If someone went around saying that the best teapots are those which are the same shape as fire hydrants, wouldn't you regard that as rather arbitrary? Surely a less arbitrary criterion would involve how good they are at making tea, not whether they bear a superficial resemblance to something else.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Well, it would be a question of judgement. If I read everything the ancient Romans wrote about the history of Rome, I am skeptical, for example, about the bit about Romulus and Remus. Some children are suckled by she-wolves, yes, but they don't grow up to build cities, they grow up to run around thinking they're wolves. On the other hand, I am certain of the existence of Julius Caesar. In order to be certain of this, I don't have to declare the entire canon to be true, I don't go saying "But if I can't believe in Romulus, how can I believe in Caesar?" Drawing this conclusion requires the hidden premise that evolution is the only thing that could make anyone doubt the existence of God. I'd point out to him that since other people have abandoned atheism for different religions due to unexplained personal convictions, such convictions are known to be unreliable in religious matters (since not all religions can be true).

"But," says your imaginary counterpart, "nucleosynthesis is the source of all things, well, OK, except hydrogen and helium. Without it we wouldn't exist, which is more than one can say of your God, who is imaginary. Nucleosynthesis is therefore infinitely more important than your God, and surely therefore humans are important as being the end-product of nucleosynthesis? All hail the Triple Alpha Process!"(Remember, I think he's as wrong as you are, this is not what I would say. I think that the value of humans is intrinsic.) To the extent that it is, yes. This is why no-one in his right mind gives a stuff about a mere zygote, but why late-term abortion is permitted only in cases of medical necessity. And that matters because?What you, like so many Christian apologists, are trying to do, is present me with a position of complete nihilism, skepticism, and relativism from which you then offer me God as the only escape from the prison you've built for me. But if you could talk me into such a position, which you can't, then God would not, in fact, be a way out. Consider the following dialogue: Me : I'm so mad at Jack right now. You: Why don't you kill him? Me : What? You: Kill him. Stab him with a knife. Me : But that would be wrong. You: Why? Me : He's a human, like me, and like me, he doesn't want to die. You: But these are mere facts, to which you assign an entirely arbitrary value. Why should you do so? Why is it important that Jack shares a species or a sentiment with you? Me : OK, you talked me into it. I'm gonna stab Jack. After years of trying, a Christian apologist has finally convinced me that life is meaningless and human life is worthless. Congratulations. Have you seen my knife? You: Wait! I have a reason for you not to kill Jack! Me : Yeah? You: He's made in God's image! Me : But that, if true, is merely a fact, to which you assign an entirely arbitrary value. Why should you do so? Why is it important that Jack shares some ill-defined characteristics with God? "Jack is like God" is just one more factual proposition like "Jack is like me", which we agreed was of no significance. You have shown me the error of attaching arbitrary values to merely factual propositions, and now it's STABBIN' TIME!---In order to escape this sort of nihilism, we both have to attach value to something. You attach it to God, I attach it to, well, real things, such as people. But if someone really said that nothing had value, we could not reason him into thinking that they did based on merely (purportedly) factual, non-value-laden premises such as "Roses are red" or "God made man in his image" or "Elephants are large" or "People have feelings". While acknowledging any or all of these propositions to be true, he could always add "And so what? Big whoop."Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Not by rapists and murderers, they seem quite keen on the old rape and murder. However, we may say that people are generally born with similar moral principles, or, at least, born with a propensity to acquire similar moral principles. Well, they're generally also born with the same number of legs and feet and toes, and a propensity to learn to walk in the same sort of way. This is not contrary to evolution, it's a consequence of it. Well no. You can tell that that's not the case because this supposed borrowing is not wholesale. Give an atheist a Bible (for example) and he will class the rules in it as wicked (stoning people to death for picking up sticks on Saturday) stupid (the prohibition on wearing mixed fabrics) or acceptable (the one about not killing people). So clearly the atheist doesn't borrow his morality from the Bible, since he must have had a sense of morality, prior to reading the Bible, that allowed him to identify some commandments as good and the others as bad.Moreover, where did the rhesus monkeys get their sense of morality from? "A majority of rhesus monkeys," says the paper, "will consistently suffer hunger rather than secure food at the expense of electroshock to a conspecific." Did they "borrow" this attitude from a theist? Who's been preaching to the monkeys?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

So a real Christian, we deduce, will never sin. In which case, are there any? Having one thing in common doesn't make things just the same. I might as well say "But in a theist, creationist, world, "rape and murder" are the same as, "eating ice-cream", because immaterialistically speaking, both are just inclinations of immortal souls created by God." Or, if it comes to that, "But in a Christian world, the Bible is the same as bullshit, because they both begin with the letter B." But in fact to recognize this one similarity of the two things is not to think them identical.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.