Evolution: Science or Philosophy

[fantassy]

If you dedicate your life to yourself and die and find out there is a God, what have you lost? Eternity.

A God worth spending eternity with would look more at the quality of life I've lived. What use did I make of the time I had - did I help my fellow creatures, etc., rather than merely judging me on lack of religious belief. So I will have lost nothing.

If God merely judges a person on their religious belief and not their good deeds, I've saved myself from spending eternity with a vain unworthy God.

fantassy

[Rhabbi]

A God worth spending eternity with would look more at the quality of life I've lived. What use did I make of the time I had - did I help my fellow creatures, etc., rather than merely judging me on lack of religious belief. So I will have lost nothing.

If God merely judges a person on their religious belief and not their good deeds, I've saved myself from spending eternity with a vain unworthy God.

I could not agree with you more, but you have to remember that that quaility of life would still be defined by Him. I do not believe that God judges people solely on their religious beliefs, but on their life and what they do with it. This is actually told to me in the Bible, so I have confidence in it.

That said, I wonder if you are living a qualioty life, or one that serves only yourself. I am not asking you this so that I will know, but so that you will think.

But if this 100 years is all you get, you have lost everything.

fantassy

I am going to answer both of these in one post because they kind of belong together.

That is my choice, and as long as I live life fully while serving God, I will have no complaints. I am happy with my life and who I am.

[TomOfSweden]

That is my choice, and as long as I live life fully while serving God, I will have no complaints. I am happy with my life and who I am.

It is actually possible that I am totally wrong about the way to serve God, whiloe being right about there being a God.

So how do you reconcile these two statements?

Here's a Roman quote that I think is very apt:
"If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable."
- Seneca

[gloombunny]

I am not going to ask you to believe in ID, or even God, but let me make a quick point.

If I dedicate my life to God, which I am doing, and I die and find oput I am wrong, what have I lost? My life of somewhere around 100 years, if I am lucky.

If you dedicate your life to yourself and die and find out there is a God, what have you lost? Eternity. Just something to think about.

Hey, it's Pascal's Wager.

It's been thoroughly discredited by many people more eloquent than me, but I can at least try to sum things up a bit by pointing out that it only "works" because you've carefully framed it as a consideration between two arbitrary possibilities that are in fact no more likely than any others. (Hint: "no gods or afterlife at all" and "my specific version of Christianity" are not the only two ways the universe could conceivably work.)

[~hellish one~]

Hey, it's Pascal's Wager.

It's been thoroughly discredited by many people more eloquent than me, but I can at least try to sum things up a bit by pointing out that it only "works" because you've carefully framed it as a consideration between two arbitrary possibilities that are in fact no more likely than any others. (Hint: "no gods or afterlife at all" and "my specific version of Christianity" are not the only two ways the universe could conceivably work.)

agreed. and i agree with fantassy as well. very wise words hun.

there are a million different possibilities. nothing after death, heaven, reincarnation...all of which are just as plausible as the other.

but there is no way i could pretend to worship a god for my entire lifetime just because there is the possibility that i might go to hell if i don't. there is also the possibility that i might be reincarnated. ~shrugs~ like i said...i need that proof. i doubt i will ever get it. but i'm not belittling your choice to believe in what you do, Rhabbi. there are so many different faiths around the world, it just blows my mind that any one could think they are the one true religion....ya know?

[Rhabbi]

agreed. and i agree with fantassy as well. very wise words hun.

there are a million different possibilities. nothing after death, heaven, reincarnation...all of which are just as plausible as the other.

but there is no way i could pretend to worship a god for my entire lifetime just because there is the possibility that i might go to hell if i don't. there is also the possibility that i might be reincarnated. ~shrugs~ like i said...i need that proof. i doubt i will ever get it. but i'm not belittling your choice to believe in what you do, Rhabbi. there are so many different faiths around the world, it just blows my mind that any one could think they are the one true religion....ya know?

I agree with that sentiment, it does blow my mind as well. The most surprising thing in my life was the day I came to believe in God. If you are curious about the way this feels, there is actually a book that describes it better than I could, because if I tried to I would end up using his ideas and descriptions. If you do not mind reading a book that is about religion and one man's journey from atheism to belief I recommend "Surprised by Joy" by C. S. Lewis.

[Rhabbi]

Hey, it's Pascal's Wager.

It's been thoroughly discredited by many people more eloquent than me, but I can at least try to sum things up a bit by pointing out that it only "works" because you've carefully framed it as a consideration between two arbitrary possibilities that are in fact no more likely than any others. (Hint: "no gods or afterlife at all" and "my specific version of Christianity" are not the only two ways the universe could conceivably work.)

I have actually seen this response before, which is why I did not try to push my version of Christianity. But I should have added a third choice, as a subset to the first, to deal with this answer. It is actually possible that I am totally wrong about the way to serve God, whiloe being right about there being a God.

[TomOfSweden]

I am not going to ask you to believe in ID, or even God, but let me make a quick point.

If I dedicate my life to God, which I am doing, and I die and find oput I am wrong, what have I lost? My life of somewhere around 100 years, if I am lucky.

If you dedicate your life to yourself and die and find out there is a God, what have you lost? Eternity. Just something to think about.

Why not do the maths instead. We know we have this life. This is all we know. We don't know if we have an afterlife. If we assume there may be, we have the problem of working out what this afterlife entails and how we can make it better. We have no clues. The existance of an afterlife is pure assumption. The existance of god is pure assumption. The belief in that there exists a god that has an intelligence and that god cares about earth and humans is equally assumption. If we sit down and make a compilation over the possible varieties of heaven our human brains can conjour up, (all on equal merit to the Bibles version) we will find that the result is one chance in an infinity.

So the scenario you presented is skewed. It's not a choice between two equal possibilities. They're not even almost equal. One is pure guesswork and the other is fact.

edit: Ninjad. NatalieD beat me to it. I bow to your great wisdom.

[cariad]

Popping my head into this thread for a moment, deciding not to use the edit button but, differing ideas are great - they make for debate, snide remarks and insults make for playground fights, and Mistress Cariad will growl if she has to.

So, pretty please...

*trots off to other parts of the forum, hoping that peace and mutual respect will reign*

cariad

[TomOfSweden]

Popping my head into this thread for a moment, deciding not to use the edit button but, differing ideas are great - they make for debate, snide remarks and insults make for playground fights, and Mistress Cariad will growl if she has to.

So, pretty please...

*trots off to other parts of the forum, hoping that peace and mutual respect will reign*

cariad

I know you don't like being a misstress so I'll be nice. :

[cariad]

I know you don't like being a misstress so I'll be nice. :

Thanks Tom, the problem is that I do such a bad job of it.

*looking around to make sure that everyone else is suitably horrified at the thought*

cariad

[anonymouse]

I just want to touch on a couple of points raised early in this thread.

Historically speaking, all science originally began as philosophy. Over the past several millenia, philosophical debate about the nature of things turned up answers to philosophical questions. These 'answers' then broke away from philosophy and formed into various branches of science and art. It could be argued that this 'evolution of thought' is part of a wider evolutionary process.

There have been two very interesting books written in recent years to address the phenomenon of spiritual belief.

'God's Debris', written by Scott Addams, creator of the Dilbert series of comics, is available as a free PDF download (easily found by Googling it). It's a very enjoyable read that asks more questions than it answers.

'The God Part of the Brain' is another (I forget the author's name) takes a very interesting view that 'God exists' in a physiological sense in the same way that 'music exists'. Both are ubiquitous and universal across cultures and epochs, and neuroscience can now actually pinpoint the regions in the brain that are stimulated by both. More interestingly, the parts of the brain that are stimulated by music and spirituality are the 'pleasure zones' (for wont of the proper scientific name) -- the very same receptors that respond to eating and sex or, in other words, the receptors that are responsible for survival of species.

It should also be noted that the current academic zietgeist is one of a post-modernist making. Words like 'universals' and 'truth' are regarded by many these days as meaningless. This is interesting because truth, for example, exists on a truth - fallacy continuum. If there is no truth then, by extension, lies can't exist. "There were no weapons of mass destruction." The statement is meaningless unless truth exists.

Anyway, this is an interesting thread and I hope I haven't treaded on the toes of anybody who might have a different viewpoint to mine.

anonymouse

[TomOfSweden]

'The God Part of the Brain' is another (I forget the author's name) takes a very interesting view that 'God exists' in a physiological sense in the same way that 'music exists'. Both are ubiquitous and universal across cultures and epochs, and neuroscience can now actually pinpoint the regions in the brain that are stimulated by both. More interestingly, the parts of the brain that are stimulated by music and spirituality are the 'pleasure zones' (for wont of the proper scientific name) -- the very same receptors that respond to eating and sex or, in other words, the receptors that are responsible for survival of species.

Thanks for the book tips. I'm always on the look out for books on the subject. Belief in an ubiquitous physical god I thought was called pantheism? Extremly interesting anyway.

It should also be noted that the current academic zietgeist is one of a post-modernist making. Words like 'universals' and 'truth' are regarded by many these days as meaningless. This is interesting because truth, for example, exists on a truth - fallacy continuum. If there is no truth then, by extension, lies can't exist. "There were no weapons of mass destruction." The statement is meaningless unless truth exists.

I fucking hate social relativists. Of the simple reason that most people seem to missunderstand it. It has to do with cognitive truth and not with the actual truth. If two people stand in the rain, the truth is that they'll get wet no matter how much they might disagree on the details about definitions of weather or degrees of wetness.

Post modernist philosophers tend to get grossly miss-quoted in the press further adding to the confusion.

And then you've got smart-asses who use the term, (erroneously) because they're too damn lazy to engage their brains and just claim everything is relative. Right now it poisons the Swedish philosophical debates. I don't know how it is over there, but here it's rediculous. You might get some post-modernist feminist talking about axioms. I mean, that's not what her thing is. It's talking about ethics. Yes, there is a truth. The problem may be that nobody sees it, but that's a completely different matter.

[anonymouse]

I fucking hate social relativists. Of the simple reason that most people seem to missunderstand it. It has to do with cognitive truth and not with the actual truth. If two people stand in the rain, the truth is that they'll get wet no matter how much they might disagree on the details about definitions of weather or degrees of wetness.

Language/linguistics is largely at fault here. To ask the question, "Is the glass half full or half empty?" denies the possibility that the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. 'Truth' here is so bound up in semantics it ignores context.

Apologies for the short reply ... it's been a long day

anonymouse

[TomOfSweden]

Language/linguistics is largely at fault here. To ask the question, "Is the glass half full or half empty?" denies the possibility that the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. 'Truth' here is so bound up in semantics it ignores context.

Apologies for the short reply ... it's been a long day

anonymouse

I totaly understand what relativism is all about. But as you say; it's largely about linguistics and not about truth at all.

I read "gods debris". I like Scott Adams. Thanks for the tip, he's fun. I'm guessing it's the result of taking a beginners course in philosophy because it usually covers just the problems he poses in the book. Even though none of it is very profound or new it was still a good read.

[Rhabbi]

I just want to touch on a couple of points raised early in this thread.

Historically speaking, all science originally began as philosophy. Over the past several millenia, philosophical debate about the nature of things turned up answers to philosophical questions. These 'answers' then broke away from philosophy and formed into various branches of science and art. It could be argued that this 'evolution of thought' is part of a wider evolutionary process.

There have been two very interesting books written in recent years to address the phenomenon of spiritual belief.

'God's Debris', written by Scott Addams, creator of the Dilbert series of comics, is available as a free PDF download (easily found by Googling it). It's a very enjoyable read that asks more questions than it answers.

'The God Part of the Brain' is another (I forget the author's name) takes a very interesting view that 'God exists' in a physiological sense in the same way that 'music exists'. Both are ubiquitous and universal across cultures and epochs, and neuroscience can now actually pinpoint the regions in the brain that are stimulated by both. More interestingly, the parts of the brain that are stimulated by music and spirituality are the 'pleasure zones' (for wont of the proper scientific name) -- the very same receptors that respond to eating and sex or, in other words, the receptors that are responsible for survival of species.

It should also be noted that the current academic zietgeist is one of a post-modernist making. Words like 'universals' and 'truth' are regarded by many these days as meaningless. This is interesting because truth, for example, exists on a truth - fallacy continuum. If there is no truth then, by extension, lies can't exist. "There were no weapons of mass destruction." The statement is meaningless unless truth exists.

Anyway, this is an interesting thread and I hope I haven't treaded on the toes of anybody who might have a different viewpoint to mine.

anonymouse

I do not think you have tread on anyone's toes, at least you have not tread on mine. I kind of started this debate because i wanted to make people think about evolution in a new way. My reading over the last few years has raised a lot more questions about evolution than I had thought existed and has shown me that the debate between science and religion has never been that, the debates are always about philosophy.

I think it is actually harder for the philosopher to modify his beliefs than it is for the man of faith to modify his. I often wonder about why this might be so, and have come to the conclusion that sinc a philosopher has nothing to believe in but his own intellect and its capacity to interpret the world around him, he would rather reject universal truth than admit he is wrong. If truth is relative, than everyone can be right and he does not need to adapt to change.

Whereas the man of faith recognizes universal truth to exist outside of himself, so if evidence actually proves him wrong about something he is able to adapt to the truth. Asd i have repeatedly said, I would be willing to admit that evolution is true if someone could supply me with objective evidence of some type.

[TomOfSweden]

I think it is actually harder for the philosopher to modify his beliefs than it is for the man of faith to modify his. I often wonder about why this might be so, and have come to the conclusion that sinc a philosopher has nothing to believe in but his own intellect and its capacity to interpret the world around him, he would rather reject universal truth than admit he is wrong. If truth is relative, than everyone can be right and he does not need to adapt to change.

Whereas the man of faith recognizes universal truth to exist outside of himself, so if evidence actually proves him wrong about something he is able to adapt to the truth. Asd i have repeatedly said, I would be willing to admit that evolution is true if someone could supply me with objective evidence of some type.

I just thought I'd point out that all the religious beliefs are all philosophical schools. Nothing in this post makes any sense. It's comparing Toyotas to cars. The idea of objective truth is Aristotelian, and is just one of the pre-christian ideas incorporated into christianity. There is nothing in christianity philosophy which even at its inception that was original or new. The Bible is a collection of moral values that where commonly shared by most people at the time of its compilation, (ie ca 300 AD).

And you are on top of this wrong. If two philosophers have a discussion where one of them is open to every avenue and the other only is open to a world of objective, (ie external) truths. Who is the most open to new ideas?

You might have found that in general christians are more open to new ideas than non-christian philosophers, which is a gross generalisation. It's a value judgement impossible to measure of verify. Just a bag of wind, right?

All we have is our own intellect. You believe god gave you free will right? If its not your intellect at work, then what is?

[Rhabbi]

You might have found that in general christians are more open to new ideas than non-christian philosophers, which is a gross generalisation. It's a value judgement impossible to measure of verify. Just a bag of wind, right?

All we have is our own intellect. You believe god gave you free will right? If its not your intellect at work, then what is?

Actually Tom, I have not found this. I would like to point out that though I am a Christian, you are the one that keeps bringing up Christianity. I have found that most 'christians' are closed minded bigots. I am a believer in a God that is bigger than I am, so I do not have to defend him at the expense of truth. This allows me to apply all of my mind to a discusssion and not be offended when someone disagrees. I know that eventuall the truth will be found out, whatever it is.

[TomOfSweden]

Actually Tom, I have not found this. I would like to point out that though I am a Christian, you are the one that keeps bringing up Christianity. I have found that most 'christians' are closed minded bigots. I am a believer in a God that is bigger than I am, so I do not have to defend him at the expense of truth. This allows me to apply all of my mind to a discusssion and not be offended when someone disagrees. I know that eventuall the truth will be found out, whatever it is.

I bring up christianity because you are christian. You made a statement where you claimed that philosophers have more rigid mind-sets than men of faith.

"I think it is actually harder for the philosopher to modify his beliefs than it is for the man of faith to modify his. I often wonder about why this might be so, and have come to the conclusion that sinc a philosopher has nothing to believe in but his own intellect and its capacity to interpret the world around him, he would rather reject universal truth than admit he is wrong. If truth is relative, than everyone can be right and he does not need to adapt to change.

Whereas the man of faith recognizes universal truth to exist outside of himself, so if evidence actually proves him wrong about something he is able to adapt to the truth. Asd i have repeatedly said, I would be willing to admit that evolution is true if someone could supply me with objective evidence of some type."



Which means that you believe that more than half of all people are closed minded biggots. Or put in a more mathematical terms.

L = Level of closed minded biggotry
(L*philosopher)>(L*men of faith) && (L*men of faith)> (all people*L biggotry/all people)= Rhabbi's view of biggotry

So if the most men of faith are closed minded biggots but are:

"Whereas the man of faith recognizes universal truth to exist outside of himself, so if evidence actually proves him wrong about something he is able to adapt to the truth."

Please explain how a person of faith adapt to the truth if they at the same time are "closed minded biggots"?

I believe all people are social creatures. We like to share beliefs with people around us. No matter what. It's not a question of being closed minded, it's a question of from which sources of facts we are open to. Nobody is trully closed minded. I think it goes against our primeival instincts. No matter how rigid we are in our beliefs in certain situations, we will never see ourselves as closed minded, because none of us are. It's good that we are selective in where we get our information or our whole heads would also be filled with questionable truths given to us by TV-shoping channels.

At least it explains why a particular religious faith is geographically contained.

[TomOfSweden]

Sorry Rhabbi, I'll get back to answering your earlier posts. I'm a bit pressed for time. I thought I'd add this real quick since it's relevant. I got an answer from my PhD friend in molecular biology and I'll have to interpret since she's Swedish.

There's a long list of observed speciasation that has occured both in laboratory and in nature. She didn't go into detail but Diane Dodd proved it without a doubt in 1989. There's always critique about every experiment, especially if it gets this much attention. Just because a scientist words some critcism about a method doesn't mean that they don't accept the result. Nobody has been able to invalidate her experiment which is the important detail. Her experiment has been repeated many times and we always get the same result. Dodd did it on fruit flies and it's been done many times after that with other creatures and plants.

And then she went on about how sick she is of religious fanatics and militant vegans, which are a nuisance in her field. She also said that most of their results get miss-quoted in the press to make better head-lines. You really need to read the reports themselves to get a fair picture of what they are doing. Admitedly you also need to have studied the field to understand the terminology.

She didn't write this in the letter but I know from earlier that she moved to Australia, (from Sweden) because it's the most liberal place to do genetic research. That and South Korea.

[Rhabbi]

Sorry Rhabbi, I'll get back to answering your earlier posts. I'm a bit pressed for time. I thought I'd add this real quick since it's relevant. I got an answer from my PhD friend in molecular biology and I'll have to interpret since she's Swedish.

There's a long list of observed speciasation that has occured both in laboratory and in nature. She didn't go into detail but Diane Dodd proved it without a doubt in 1989. There's always critique about every experiment, especially if it gets this much attention. Just because a scientist words some critcism about a method doesn't mean that they don't accept the result. Nobody has been able to invalidate her experiment which is the important detail. Her experiment has been repeated many times and we always get the same result. Dodd did it on fruit flies and it's been done many times after that with other creatures and plants.

And then she went on about how sick she is of religious fanatics and militant vegans, which are a nuisance in her field. She also said that most of their results get miss-quoted in the press to make better head-lines. You really need to read the reports themselves to get a fair picture of what they are doing. Admitedly you also need to have studied the field to understand the terminology.

She didn't write this in the letter but I know from earlier that she moved to Australia, (from Sweden) because it's the most liberal place to do genetic research. That and South Korea.

Citations please.

[TomOfSweden]

Citations please.

It's Swedish so a translation is the best I can do. Beside Diane Dodd she didn't give me any references. She wasn't hard to google either. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolib...rticle//evo_45

My friend was pretty dismissive though. As if the whole US evolution debate is a non issue, not worthy of her time to explain. A completly synthetic discussion.

It makes sense though, since I haven't heard the same debate in any other country anywhere. It's as if nobody else understands where the ID people get their scientific suport. If we trust my friend, it's because they maybe don't have any.

edit: to be perfectly clear here. I only asked my friend about speciasation. Nothing else. There may be other problems with evolution. Speciasation just isn't one of them.

[Rhabbi]

It's Swedish so a translation is the best I can do. Beside Diane Dodd she didn't give me any references. She wasn't hard to google either. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolib...rticle//evo_45

My friend was pretty dismissive though. As if the whole US evolution debate is a non issue, not worthy of her time to explain. A completly synthetic discussion.

It makes sense though, since I haven't heard the same debate in any other country anywhere. It's as if nobody else understands where the ID people get their scientific suport. If we trust my friend, it's because they maybe don't have any.

edit: to be perfectly clear here. I only asked my friend about speciasation. Nothing else. There may be other problems with evolution. Speciasation just isn't one of them.

Interestingly enough, I read the article you cited, and it was pure speculation and admitted it. Although adaptation to environment and food occurs, I still do not see a distinct species.

[TomOfSweden]

Interestingly enough, I read the article you cited, and it was pure speculation and admitted it. Although adaptation to environment and food occurs, I still do not see a distinct species.

I think it has more to do with the authors careful use of language rather than any personal convictions. Maybe your only seeing what you're looking for.

[TomOfSweden]

Yeah, I know. I'm just fucking with Rhabbi. It doesn't take a lot of philosophical study to figure out we don't have free will. People who believe we do just haven't given it enough thought.

It's just another one of those christian bullshit issues that really don't exist outside the church.

I think what you are refering to is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?

[anonymouse]

I think what you are refering to is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?

Actually, my mistake. It's knows as 'speech-act' theory. Wiki introduction HERE.

anonymouse