Science and religion

[Darkstar]

Do you think that people will accept evolutionary theory in its exact present form in 1000 years with zero modifications? Can you name any theories from 1000 years ago that are understood exactly the same way with zero modifications?

I am unsure if evolution is the best way to understand life because it is an incomplete theory, it rests on unproven elements (abiogenesis) and the nature of science is that science tends to overturn itself fairly regularly.

What? Abiogenesis is a completely different theory than evolution. Evolution only concerns itself with what happened after life arose. God could have created the first life and evolution still be true.

I don't see what is retarded about this. It is just a value system. What makes trusting in science more rational than trusting in other sources of authority?

Science values evidence and provable assertions, religion does not. And...science works. If it weren't for science, you wouldn't even be able to post this. Try praying a post onto this forum, see how it works out for you.

When you say "ignorant" do you mean "ignorant of controversial issues in science?"

Controversial!?! Anyone who still thinks evolution is controversial is ignorant of science.

[jstrodel]

define "evil".

Evil is being separate from God, or separate from the intended order of creation. To go against the purposes of God is evil.

I don't know what is more valuable to me, but I'd say my own life is way up there among the most valuable things.
What does that say about my character? you're the philosopher, not me...

What you value most, that is how you will know what your character is. If you value your life more than you value doing good, you are a selfish person. Your character is a character of selfishness. It is a horrible condition.

I think you're projecting... I've never read anything by Hitchens nor Russel.

I'll tell you how I'd seek this god of yours. I won't.
Assume I'm apart from the rest of the civilized world, and have no contact with anyone who could provide me with the concept of god.
Knowing evolution to be a fairly accurate representation of the way human life came to be on this planet (considering life came to be on the planet, somehow, and moving from there... say you start at 65 million years ago, right after all the dinos dies off), at some point, early humans had no notion of any god. I expect to acquire knowledge of its existence the same way those people did all those years ago.
I will never accept other people's accounts, for they can, and most likely are, false (even if unknowingly).

[quote]
If you know, then why don't I?

Because I have spent years and years and years of my life purifying myself from sin and seeking God and have given up everything to follow Jesus Christ.

Why doesn't it provide everyone with the same knowledge?...

God always provides people with the same level of knowledge, based on how hard they seek Him and how hard they sanctify themselves.

(what about different religions...) why does it provide this knowledge in different ways so as to produce conflicts among the people?

What if the different religions all expressed aspects of the revelation of God that was distorted in different ways (Jews distort the Old Testament, Muslims distort the New Testament, Buddhism is like a philosophy that distorts some aspects, Christian denominations distort different teachings and come to different ideas).

I wouldn't call you crazy, but then again, I don't know you, besides all the things you write on here... I'd call you deluded, at least.

What evidence do you have that I am suffering from delusions, a specific medical term that is a very serious accusation to level at someone? To say that someone is deluded is to intentionally call their credibility into question. You don't typically see scientists accusing each other of having delusions. This is a very serious attempt at character assassination, you are trying to discredit someones testimony.

What evidence to you have that people are deluded.

[Darkstar]

define "evil".

Evil is being separate from God, or separate from the intended order of creation. To go against the purposes of God is evil.

And that is the problem with your "objective" morality. You presuppose that he exists and is legitimately the ultimate moral authority, despite the fact that there is evidence to the contrary. Of course, if you blindly accept that he is, then slavery must be okay, and stoning people who work on Sunday is too. Those laws may not apply now, but god said them before, and why would an omnipotent, omniscient god change his mind?

[Joel]

God created evil.
What happens when we do 'evil' things? We're just using his creation, right?

[jstrodel]

Do you think that people will accept evolutionary theory in its exact present form in 1000 years with zero modifications? Can you name any theories from 1000 years ago that are understood exactly the same way with zero modifications?

I am unsure if evolution is the best way to understand life because it is an incomplete theory, it rests on unproven elements (abiogenesis) and the nature of science is that science tends to overturn itself fairly regularly.

What? Abiogenesis is a completely different theory than evolution. Evolution only concerns itself with what happened after life arose. God could have created the first life and evolution still be true.

I don't see what is retarded about this. It is just a value system. What makes trusting in science more rational than trusting in other sources of authority?

Science values evidence and provable assertions, religion does not. And...science works. If it weren't for science, you wouldn't even be able to post this. Try praying a post onto this forum, see how it works out for you.

When you say "ignorant" do you mean "ignorant of controversial issues in science?"

Controversial!?! Anyone who still thinks evolution is controversial is ignorant of science.

Do you know who Richard Smalley is? He is a noble prize winner who discovered Buckey Balls. He rejected evolutionary theory. Do you think you are a better scientist than he is? What about Raymond Vaham Damadian, the inventor of the MIR machine who nearly won a nobel prize.

You have confidence in a popular level understanding of science. You may be right about evolutionary theory, but many people in the science world have been completely convinced about issues in the past. The fact that you accept evolutionary theory, which is a mainstream theory that has dominance in the biology world and many application in pharmaceuticals, some call it a cornerstone of modern biology, does not make you an authority on the natural world.

It is true that evolutionary theory is a very significant paradigm by which people understand biology. There have been other paradigms in the past, such as Newtonian physics that have since been replaced.

There is nothing foolish about suggesting that mans present state of understanding is likely not the final understanding. History has proved that to be the case.

As for abiogenesis, it is absolutely related to evolutionary theory. Evolution stands of falls based on a certain number of conditions that are created through the origin of life and other factors. Evolution cannot explain these things, whether it is true or not, it has no ability to deal with the issues that support it.

As a theory that cannot explain fully the nature of life or how it originates, it should be treated as such, not as a catch all theory that replaces God, because evolution cannot do any such thing.

Evolution is certainly a controversial issue that has many dissenters. It is a mainstream scientific paradigm, but it is not universally accepted. It is not necessarily a sign of a lack of knowledge of science to question evolutionary theory, as some of the brightest scientists have.

How many nobel prizes do you have?

---

And that is the problem with your "objective" morality. You presuppose that he exists and is legitimately the ultimate moral authority, despite the fact that there is evidence to the contrary.

There is not a shred of legitimate evidence anywhere against God's existence. What do you have? Post it. Why do you make naked assertions?

Of course, if you blindly accept that he is, then slavery must be okay, and stoning people who work on Sunday is too. Those laws may not apply now, but god said them before, and why would an omnipotent, omniscient god change his mind?

This displays an extremely superficial knowledge of the two covenants in scripture. God does change his mind, why else would God give two covenants. The nature of the Israelite theocracy is very different from the nature of the modern world. What makes it wrong to stone people to death for working on Sunday? Can you make an argument? That is not self evidently wrong to me, it is different from modern culture, which seperates political life from religious. Also, what is wrong about slavery, absolutely, that makes slavery wrong even in circumstances where people that would be enslaved would either die of starvation (in a famine) or would be slaughtered (in a war). What makes slavery evil?

I should add that Christians today are ending slavery against the world and Christians have been some of the main participants involved in created the modern free secular societies which you benefit from. Christianity is a flexible and adaptable application of spiritual principles that happens through history.

The one constant is that the central teaching of the Christian faith is to love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength and to love your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:17). This is what all ordinances in the Bible center themselves around, whether ordinances to care for the poor and widow and orphans, ordinances to sanctify, ordinances that regulate slavery in a limited context and even ordinances that establish religious norms and punish deviance with death. They all come out of a desire to have a society that is ruled by God's love.

Look around today. How many people keep the sabbath? How many people are set apart to God. Not many. The law has a purpose. God is good.

---

God created evil.
What happens when we do 'evil' things? We're just using his creation, right?

People have libertarian free will. When we do evil things, we use God's creation to separate ourselves from God. This angers God.

[Tonus]

The most persuasive evidence comes when you seek God yourself and you realize the power that God has to change lives.

I agree with this. Many people seek god. None find him, but some do not accept that, and so they delude themselves. And self-delusion can be more convincing than nothing, especially if nothing is the answer they do not want.

or that you will turn around and repeat a canned response to these various arguments you have probably not spent more than an hour or so thinking about each.

This presumes that shallow arguments require any time to consider at all.

[Darkstar]

Do you know who Richard Smalley is? He is a noble prize winner who discovered Buckey Balls. He rejected evolutionary theory.

Do you think you are a better scientist than he is? What about Raymond Vaham Damadian, the inventor of the MIR machine who nearly won a nobel prize.

Am I supposed to care? What makes a chemist an authority on evolutionary biology. Talk about someone who only know their own field. This is an incredibly flimsy argument from authority, and I would be embarrassed if I had made it myself.
Level of support for evolution

You have confidence in a popular level understanding of science. You may be right about evolutionary theory, but many people in the science world have been completely convinced about issues in the past. The fact that you accept evolutionary theory, which is a mainstream theory that has dominance in the biology world and many application in pharmaceuticals, some call it a cornerstone of modern biology, does not make you an authority on the natural world.

It is true that evolutionary theory is a very significant paradigm by which people understand biology. There have been other paradigms in the past, such as Newtonian physics that have since been replaced.

There is nothing foolish about suggesting that mans present state of understanding is likely not the final understanding. History has proved that to be the case.

I know that. That is why science is constantly evolving and refining itself; something religion rarely attempts.

As for abiogenesis, it is absolutely related to evolutionary theory. Evolution stands of falls based on a certain number of conditions that are created through the origin of life and other factors. Evolution cannot explain these things, whether it is true or not, it has no ability to deal with the issues that support it.

As a theory that cannot explain fully the nature of life or how it originates, it should be treated as such, not as a catch all theory that replaces God, because evolution cannot do any such thing.

Did you not read the part where I said that evolution only relates to what happens once life exists, and that the explanation of how life originated is something entirely different?

Evolution is certainly a controversial issue that has many dissenters.

Just because scientifically ignorant people don't understand it, doesn't mean it isn't true.

It is a mainstream scientific paradigm, but it is not universally accepted. It is not necessarily a sign of a lack of knowledge of science to question evolutionary theory, as some of the brightest scientists have.

Yeah...it is. Lack of understanding of biology, at least, though not necessarily science in general. Or perhaps even just a lack of understanding of evolution (or a refusal to accept it even when it is understood because the person is a creationist).

How many nobel prizes do you have?

Ditto.

And that is the problem with your "objective" morality. You presuppose that he exists and is legitimately the ultimate moral authority, despite the fact that there is evidence to the contrary.

There is not a shred of legitimate evidence anywhere against God's existence. What do you have? Post it. Why do you make naked assertions?

It is a naked assertion that you presuppose that god exists and is the ultimate moral authority? You mean to say you aren't saying either of these things?

Of course, if you blindly accept that he is, then slavery must be okay, and stoning people who work on Sunday is too. Those laws may not apply now, but god said them before, and why would an omnipotent, omniscient god change his mind?

This displays an extremely superficial knowledge of the two covenants in scripture. God does change his mind, why else would God give two covenants.

Then he must have made some sort of mistake with the first one, and hence he is imperfect.

The nature of the Israelite theocracy is very different from the nature of the modern world. What makes it wrong to stone people to death for working on Sunday? Can you make an argument?

There is no reason to take away someone's life for working on Sunday. Working on Sunday does not inherently cause harm to anyone, nor violate their rights, so inflicting punishment (especially harsh punishment) for this would be immoral.

That is not self evidently wrong to me,

it is different from modern culture, which seperates political life from religious. Also, what is wrong about slavery, absolutely, that makes slavery wrong even in circumstances where people that would be enslaved would either die of starvation (in a famine) or would be slaughtered (in a war). What makes slavery evil?

So if you threaten to kill someone, but simply enslave them instead, it's okay? If you find someone starving on the street and you take them home and enslave them, but feed them to keep them alive, it's okay? Slaves have basically no rights (although Israelite slaves had some limited rights), so wouldn't such a thing be immoral, especially if the slave had done nothing wrong?

I should add that Christians today are ending slavery against the world and Christians have been some of the main participants involved in created the modern free secular societies which you benefit from. Christianity is a flexible and adaptable application of spiritual principles that happens through history.

This is good, although they aren't that flexible, but maybe someday...

The one constant is that the central teaching of the Christian faith is to love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength and to love your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:17). This is what all ordinances in the Bible center themselves around, whether ordinances to care for the poor and widow and orphans, ordinances to sanctify, ordinances that regulate slavery in a limited context and even ordinances that establish religious norms and punish deviance with death. They all come out of a desire to have a society that is ruled by God's love.

Jesus, yes. God, not so much. Jesus was "turn the other check" and "love thy neighbor" and god was more of a genocidal type. Of course, if you call it loving to massacre those heathen pagans, to make way for the "real" children of god, then...

[Ryantology]

Do you know who Richard Smalley is? He is a noble prize winner who discovered Buckey Balls. He rejected evolutionary theory. Do you think you are a better scientist than he is? What about Raymond Vaham Damadian, the inventor of the MIR machine who nearly won a nobel prize.

So, we have some very intelligent men who are clearly masters of their own fields but ignorant about biological science.

It is true that evolutionary theory is a very significant paradigm by which people understand biology. There have been other paradigms in the past, such as Newtonian physics that have since been replaced.

Newtonian physics was never replaced. It was augmented by new theories which explain what Newtonian physics can't account for because Newtonian physics only apply within certain scales of matter.

There is nothing foolish about suggesting that mans present state of understanding is likely not the final understanding. History has proved that to be the case.

It certainly has.

As for abiogenesis, it is absolutely related to evolutionary theory. Evolution stands of falls based on a certain number of conditions that are created through the origin of life and other factors. Evolution cannot explain these things, whether it is true or not, it has no ability to deal with the issues that support it.

Untrue. The theory of evolution does not, in any way, rely upon the truth of abiogenesis. An omni-sentient creator could have designed life so that it evolved exactly according to the models we have observed. Evolution does not discredit the concept of intelligent design, it merely discredits, specifically, the Biblical account of the creation of life, and that is why some Christians accept it and others are absolutely hostile toward it.

Evolution is certainly a controversial issue that has many dissenters. It is a mainstream scientific paradigm, but it is not universally accepted. It is not necessarily a sign of a lack of knowledge of science to question evolutionary theory, as some of the brightest scientists have.

Evolution is only controversial to those whose agendas are threatened by it.

There is not a shred of legitimate evidence anywhere against God's existence. What do you have? Post it. Why do you make naked assertions?

There is none favoring it. It is an unfalsifiable claim, so it can't be disproved, but the fact that Christians have nothing except an unfalsifiable claim says a lot about the state of this debate. After four thousand years, a lack of evidence starts to qualify as evidence of absence.

Really. Your only defense is 'you can't prove he doesn't exist', while you, yourself, are completely empty of proof that any god exists, much less the one you favor. This would put us on even ground, except that you make the positive claim that a specific God definitely exists and has specific attributes which definitely exist. Your claim is more outrageous than ours, and it's not even close. You have to prove much more than we do, but instead of proving your many positive claims, you ask us to disprove your positive claim.

You definitely know enough about formal logic to commit many of the common fallacies over and over, that's for certain.

This displays an extremely superficial knowledge of the two covenants in scripture. God does change his mind, why else would God give two covenants. The nature of the Israelite theocracy is very different from the nature of the modern world. What makes it wrong to stone people to death for working on Sunday? Can you make an argument? That is not self evidently wrong to me, it is different from modern culture, which seperates political life from religious. Also, what is wrong about slavery, absolutely, that makes slavery wrong even in circumstances where people that would be enslaved would either die of starvation (in a famine) or would be slaughtered (in a war). What makes slavery evil?

If your God is perfectly righteous, and God expressly condones both of the above activities as righteous and good, why do Christians no longer agree? Why did God give Moses commandments against murder and theft, and then order them to commit those atrocities upon their neighbors? Why did God give Moses four commandments against the evils of not doing exactly what God wants, yet none against slavery, rape or torture?

Christianity is a flexible and adaptable application of spiritual principles that happens through history.

Or, to paraphrase, Christianity lacks any objective meaning.

Look around today. How many people keep the sabbath? How many people are set apart to God. Not many. The law has a purpose. God is good.

Rape, slavery, torture, and genocide are also good, as they are all things God commands of his followers.

People have libertarian free will. When we do evil things, we use God's creation to separate ourselves from God. This angers God.

Anger is an irrational reaction to an event which one is certain will happen. If God is angry, it strongly implies that he is not all-knowing.

[Joel]

Anger is an irrational reaction to an event which one is certain will happen. If God is angry, it strongly implies that he is not all-knowing.

This is pretty much what I was typing.

Is he constantly angry because he knows what people are going to do? Then he's not loving or fair.
Is he surprised by things, and then gets angry? Then he's not omniscient.

[jstrodel]

or that you will turn around and repeat a canned response to these various arguments you have probably not spent more than an hour or so thinking about each.

This presumes that shallow arguments require any time to consider at all.

What percentage of great scientists, philosophers, writers, historians, men who are responsible for the learning of societies have been Christian in the last 500 years?

You don't even understand what the shallow arguments are. You don't even know what the arguments are for God's existence.