Is Evolution a Radical Idea?

Theism tells us that God is needed. Evolution IMHO is just a part of the creation.

I meant the origin of man, the origin of species, the origin of life, the origin of the universe.ABE: all involve evolution in the loose sense of that word._Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

Yes, but evolutionism has got something to back it up.

robinrohan: Sounds like you mean science.Science with a capital S, perhaps (Also sprach Zarathustra), but science.
The paradigm, the process, the body of knowledge.

---

ArcherAll species are transitional.

quote:

---

Yes, but evolutionism has got something to back it up.

---

So did "social Darwinism." And both cases are misapplications of the scientific ideas that they were purportedly based on.

Seeing hows its all going to be junked in the end renders a prime interest in that somewhat silly (from my perspective). Much more fun to find out the workings of something that goes on forever. The workings of the gospel and that which it talks of in the future is rivetting stuff to investigate in comparisonBut I like figuring out how things work in a general sense. Kind of idle hobbying on the side in relation to the gospel.

I accept evolution as having something to back it up, but Evolutionism has no more to back it up than Theism scientifically. Evolutionism cannot explain why there is something instead of nothing. Theism provides a much more rational answer to that question philosophically and logically in my view.(My understanding of evolutionism is evolution strictly by random chance and natural selection or in other words Atheistic evolution. Is that correct?)

---

Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

quote:

---

Evolutionism cannot explain why there is something instead of nothing. Theism provides a much more rational answer to that question philosophically and logically in my view.

---

I don't see how you can say that. Either "evolutionism" has an answer or the question is outside its scope. In the first case your argument is wrong in the second it is invalid.It is also wrong to say that theism has an especially rational answer. All theism can do is treat God as a brute fact. Anything evolutionism might propose is unlikely to be any worse.

Evolutionism does have an answer. Big Bang theory combined with quantum physics. The universe "begins" 14 billion years ago, from nothing. Just Pouf! and it's there.(I find this totally incomprehensible, but anyway I've heard the argument--read it on this forum.)

I have no idea what "evolutionism" means --- I am not a creationist. However, what you have described --- natural selection acting on random mutation --- is called "the theory of evolution".It has, of course, nothing to do with either atheism or the question of whether, or how, "something came out of nothing"; any more than the theory of gravity has a connection with atheism or answers the vexed question of where I left my spectacles.

I gave my understanding of the term evolutionism in the post you replied to. (post #112)I have no problem with evolution. It is when people go beyond evolution and use random chance as a first cause. That is not scientific.Theism as a first cause is not scientific either but in my view it is a much more rational conclusion to come to as to why there is anything.

---

Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

then you write I'm not following you Robin. I get the feeling in your first post that you agree with evolutionism, and in the 2nd post that you don't.Sorry for being slow but what is it you're trying to say?

I'm an evolutionism defender on this thread. I'm certainly no creationist. Let me attempt a definition of this term I made up:The development of the universe can be seeing as following a pattern that is evolutionary in nature. What happened after the Big Bang is analogous to what happened during abiogenesis which is analogous to what happened during biological evolution. First there was the cosmic soup which is analogous to the primordial soup. Out the cosmic soup evolved various discreet space objects--stars, planets, and so forth--which eventually evolved into more complex systems--solar systems.During the primordial soup days, chemicals gradually evolved into more complex chemicals and finally into some amino acids out of which life came.During the first stage of life, simple one-celled organisms evolved into complex multi-celled organisms, and so forth.We can see the similarities in these processes all of which are inevitable, maybe, and at any rate natural changes through the eons.No room for God.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

That evolutionism explains reality so well that it is devastating to religion.

I may be wrong but my understanding of evolutionism is that it goes beyond evolution by natural selection and proposes that random chance is the basis for all that exists. Random chance as first cause is outside the scope of the ToE. The reason that there is something rather than nothing can be one of two things. Either the Atheistic approach which uses random chance as an explanation or Theism using an external designer(s) as an explanation. In consideration of the exquisite balance that we see in the universe, and coupled with the various aspects of our consciousness, I just consider the latter to be a much more rational conclusion than the former.

---

Everybody is entitled to my opinion.