Is Evolution a science or a faith?

[Bad Wolf]

Still no evidence of these faults with evolution? At least post the link to the thread.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I already posted it on this thread and it was discussed for a couple pages on how scientists have made numerous mistakes on their claims for evolution, mistakes that are still believed to be true by the masses to this day.

Even presuming that to be true, making a mistake doesn't disprove evolution. Evolution is a fact and the ToE seeks to explain it.

Theorising a hypothesis and then testing it to verify/falsify it is the bedrock of there scientific method.

I'm not entirely sure why you guys don't quite grasp this very simple and easy to understand concept.

Here's something that will blow your mind. Even if the current ToE was proven to be 100% false, that still wouldn't disprove evolution. Indeed, to do that, you'd have to come up with a viable alternative to evolution as an explanation to the observed fact of how species evolve and adapt to environments. To date, I am not aware of a single alternative.

[Esquilax]

Evolution has been observed and tinkered with to such a degree that pointing to mistakes scientists have made and the public have latched onto as "overwhelming contrary evidence" is roughly the same as claiming there's overwhelming contrary evidence against the claim that the Earth is a three dimensional shape because the public believes the common shorthand that the earth is round when it's actually an oblate spheroid. It's a pedantic nothing argument that would be utter madness if we were to take it seriously.

[Mr.wizard]

I'm assuming that you consider the contrary evidence so obvious that you neglected to present any of it in support of your assertion.

---

With the convenient exception of testing claims for your god.

I already posted it on this thread and it was discussed for a couple pages on how scientists have made numerous mistakes on their claims for evolution, mistakes that are still believed to be true by the masses to this day.

Lets simplify this, are you saying that evolution does not occur? Every species has stayed exactly the same?

Even if you could point to mistakes made in the scientific study of evolution it doesn't change the fact that things evolve. The only way you could uncover mistakes made in the theory of evolution is to actually study evolution and make the corrections via more science.

Lets do an easy example, If we are standing on top of a building and we just findout that scientists had made an error on the theory of gravity, would you then conclude that gravity is only faith based and jump of the building?

[archangle]

you can have "faith" in science and you can have "faith" in religion. If you have "blind" faith in either alone you will come up short. Until we learn more that is. I have "faith" that we will know one day, all that we can know.

What or where did the word "faith" start. It seems like it is the word " I hope ... "

[Cyberman]

faith (n.)
mid-13c., "duty of fulfilling one's trust," from Old French feid, foi "faith, belief, trust, confidence, pledge," from Latin fides "trust, faith, confidence, reliance, credence, belief," from root of fidere "to trust," from PIE root *bheidh- (source also of Greek pistis; see bid). For sense evolution, see belief. Theological sense is from late 14c.; religions called faiths since c.1300.

I love etymology.

[Whateverist]

As for the question posed in the OP: I'd say if you have to ask, the subject will probably be too hard for you.

[Harris]

You don't need to have that faith to do science. You can do it anyway. If the world stopped being consistent tomorrow then we'd have to start all over, wouldn't we? The trouble would be, if the world was constantly changing from one day to the next (or one moment, or one millenium) we would end up in a position whereby nothing could be relied upon....and since we don't see that happening, and aren't in such a position - we don't have to have any faith in the proposition at all. Science already contains within it an allowance for uncertainty. What is known today may be rubbish tomorrow. We simply await the evidence that you will fail to provide. Theres a prediction which ought not to have any value if faith is the only thing tying one moment to the next....lets see how it pans out, eh?

I cannot prove love or hate by science. Science only deals with matter. Feelings can only be shown by logic. God is immaterial and beyond the reach of our primal senses. I cannot provide you the material evidence of Him by using science as science only deals with matter. I can only give a logical evidence for the existence of God through science but for that, you have to be logical.

Did you enjoy learning about your dna, btw?

I really do not have time to spend on that junkyard which is only talking about procedures but giving no solid evidences.

Harris Wrote: Please give evidence instead of giving an abstract talk.

We tried that. You just dismissed it all out of hand because it proved actual evolution to be real, and didn't prove your fantasy version that isn't actually evolution to be real.

Sorry, we're only obligated to provide evidence for what the theory actually states, not to pretend your ridiculous strawmen have any merit.

This indeed a real trouble because you are disregarding real specialists in the field. About 90% of palaentologists are absolutely not comfortable to state that fossil record is the evidence for evolution. I have given quotes of few eminent palaentologists in my main article that you have overlooked.

Well, actually, the Law of Gravity, as understood by Hawking is not what you think it is.

Just for a moment, consider all known forces are unified (which is under scrutiny with the discovery of the Higgs Boson, see:Grand Unified Theory). Under this view, gravity is no different from electromagnetism, which is no different from the weak nuclear force, nor different from the strong nuclear force.
So, down deep, the forces and fields which have been shown to bring forth particles from "empty space" are the same forces that govern chemistry, which are the same forces that govern biology.... and are also the same forces that govern what we usually call "gravity", attraction of two masses.

So, given this piece of information, is that quote by Hawking true or false?

You are missing one great fact. According to physicists, all physical laws of the universe came into existence only after the origin of universe. Are you sure that law of gravity or Higgs Boson existed before the origin of the universe when there was no matter and no space?

Oh really? Then please explain the distribution of endogenous retrovirus insertions in the genome of Hominidae. Use the Quran if you can.

Conjectures, conjectures, and only conjectures.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zK81Zti...9&index=44

I don't understand why creationists bother with trying to discredit evolution? Even if they could prove the theory of evolution wrong it gets them no closer to proving creation. I also don't know why they bother posting their objections to evolution on an atheist forum, go post your bad understanding of evolution on a biology forum. Reading the headline of this thread made my blood boil, if you have to ask if evolution is based on faith then you either are completely ignorant of how science works or you are trying to denigrate science in order to bring it down to the level of your unfounded faith based position of creation.

Well, I never said that evolution care about God. I am saying you (atheist) care for evolution with passion and emotions because it can justify your denial from God. To that, I add that you have raised evolution to such a praise worthy level as if it is God. By looking at your high gratitude for evolution, I assume that Evolution is both FAITH and God for you. Is it science? For that please read my main article “Is Evolution a science or a Faith.”

That's because a transitional fossil is a misnomer, they are all what you claim a transitional fossil is (are?).

Very interesting! However, I am not the one who coined this term “Transitional Fossil.” Ask the expert for definition and also ask how many transitional fossils he has found. If he won’t cheat you then I am sure his answer would rock your head.

You've seen paintings by Van Gough?

They are made up of thousands of tiny brush strokes each like a tiny mutation of the canvas, brush stroke upon brush stroke until the canvas is a completed painting. At what point do the accumulated brush strokes become transitional from blank canvas to the completed painting?

LOL!

So basically you start this thread to tell us what we think, even in the face of numerous comments to the contrary from people that are us, which you then ignore.

What is wrong with you?

I am not telling what you think; I am trying to show what you are doing. Although you are trying to disguise your FAITH in evolution by using scientific notions, nevertheless the fact is that Evolution and Natural selection are your gods. Only difference between you and ancient pagans is you don’t have idols of evolution and Natural selection for the purpose of worship.

Oh, look, a crocoduck!!

Come on, mr allah-man... tell us how all dogs, jackals and wolves sprouted from Noah's pair of domestic dogs... and remember than there were jackals in ancient Egypt, some 4000 years ago.

“Evolution can turn dinosaurs into birds, apes into humans, and amphibious mammals into whales.”
Live science
http://www.livescience.com/474-controver...works.html

All that fun artwork that you have presented, is in fact should be the reality if evolution really work according to its definition.

“Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind’s eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, and no sight at all.”
Page 5
The Blind Watchmaker
Richard Dawkins.

Further Quran has not given any information about which pairs Noah had took with him in the Arc. As for the date of flood, you think 4,000 years old pictures of dogs can prove something. No, because I have seen a live Juniper tree whose age according to scientists is more than 4,000 years. However, both these have no relation with the accurate date of Noah’s flood because Quran has not given even an indication when that flood happened. We may try to track the date of the flood by means of genealogy of Jewish prophets but that is also not a proper method because we have no way to estimate in what time which prophet lived due to historical gaps.

Harris Wrote: Mouse: 75% (do we have anything resembling to mouse?)

To quote genome.gov:

"Overall, mice and humans share virtually the same set of genes. Almost every gene found in one species so far has been found in a closely related form in the other. Of the approximately 4,000 genes that have been studied, less than 10 are found in one species but not in the other.

Both the mouse and human genomes contain about 3.1 billion base pairs (or chemical letters). Only about 5 percent of the sequence consist of protein-coding regions (genes). More than 90 percent of the genome is non-coding DNA, sometimes called "junk" DNA, that has no known function. Because of the vast amount of non-coding DNA, it is very hard to recognize the genes simply by looking at one sequence alone; even the best of today's computational programs fail to identify many coding sequences and misidentify others. It is similarly difficult to identify regulatory regions within DNA - the "switches" that turn gene expression on or off, up or down - as they exist only as poorly defined "consensus" sequences.

On average, the protein-coding regions of the mouse and human genomes are 85 percent identical; some genes are 99 percent identical while others are only 60 percent identical. These regions are evolutionarily conserved because they are required for function. In contrast, the non-coding regions are much less similar (only 50 percent or less). Therefore, when one compares the same DNA region from human and mouse, the functional elements clearly stand out because of their greater similarity. Scientists have developed computer software that automatically aligns human and mouse sequences making the protein-coding and regulatory regions obvious.

Human, mouse and other mammals shared a common ancestor approximately 80 million years ago. Therefore the genomes of all mammals are comparably similar. Comparisons of the DNA sequence of the dog or the cow with that of the human theoretically would be quite informative. However, the mouse has a major advantage in that it is a well-established experimental model. Not only can genes easily be found in mouse genome sequence, but it also is possible to test experimentally the function of those genes in the mouse. Thus, scientists can mimic in mice the effect of DNA alterations that occur in human diseases and carefully study the consequences of these DNA misspellings. Mouse models also afford the opportunity to test possible therapeutic agents and evaluate their precise effects."

It’s a good piece of information but you forgot to give your final conclusion.

Harris Wrote: If there is no God or anything supernatural (a creator) then there is nothing.

How would you demonstrate this?

I can demonstrate it by asking you before universe what was there if not God and you will have nothing to answer. Nothing means nothingness.

pocaracas Wrote: Fly... I don't know enough about insects to say anything.

Hey Harris, do you see this? Pocaracas came upon a subject in which he had limited knowledge, and instead of pretending he knew everything about it and spouting of an increasingly strident series of easily debunked falsehoods, he just admitted he didn't know enough to comment, and moved on.

That's what normal people do, when they don't know a thing. Isn't that so much more honest than just making shit up and expecting everyone else to deal with it?

Thanks for pointing at that. That response was a Mumbo jumbo. I don’t even know how to response because I absolutely did not understand what he had written there. See! I am not shy to show I have not understood.

Mr.wizard Wrote: We get the concept of god not existing from the claim you make that god exists. Its a default position to the claim, you claim god exists, we say we don't believe your claim. Why is this so hard to understand?
It is just as if you are saying electronic circuitry inside Sony TV is more important than Akio Morita. Well it is explaining how the circuitry works but it is not if I ask you the question, how that circuitry does comes into existence in first place.
I like that way of putting it.

Well, your objection is similar to “you said this therefore I said that.” This is something, which I was not expecting at this particular place.

And I'd like to add:

Given mutations, millions of years and billions and billions of creatures, you'd need a mechanism that actually actively prevents evolution from happening. Like a reset-button. What is it?

"If you equate the probability of the birth of a bacteria cell to chance assembly of its atoms, eternity will not suffice to produce one...”
Page 356, volume 2
A Guided Tour of the Living Cell
Christian De Duve.

Harris Wrote: First, if 4 percent difference between ape and human genes that means 3 billion base pairs of DNA in every cell that represents 120,000,000 entries in the DNA code that are different. In our DNA instruction book, that’s equivalent to about 12 million words—a seemingly small percentage that has a tremendous impact.
Of course, humans are very different from other apes. We didn't need genetics to tell us that, but genetics does help us quantify "how different" we are. That little bit makes a big difference, and I doubt that anyone would tell you otherwise.

Quote
Second, if 96 percent similarity of our genes with chimps make them our ancestor then we also share about 50% of our DNA12 with bananas but that does not make us half bananas. Or do you think otherwise.
You didn't understand the contents of that link at all. What are you having trouble with, I'll see if I can make it simpler for you? You asked for something very specific, it's been given to you, and it has nothing to do with percentages. Can you explain to me, in your own words, what that link was describing? For bonus points...as you took my suggestion to click on the individual links, right......could you describe the relationship that those genes have with regards to human beings and other hominids, specifically chimpanzees? You don't have to accept the evidence you've been given....I'd just like to see that you at least understand it in the broad strokes.

Quote
Here are some other animals who have similar genes if compared to human genes.

Cat: 90%
Cow: 80%
Mouse: 75% (do we have anything resembling to mouse?)
Fruit Fly: 60%
Yes, we have alot in common with mice, because we share an ancestor. That's one of the reasons that they're so useful for testing. Notice the dropoff in fruit flies - that's when we leave the territory of mammalia. We share an ancestor with them as well, but it's much further back - at the level of animalia. Similar to a banana, which you mentioned a minute ago - in even lesser amounts, and even further back in time - at the level of eukaryota. These are simply points of biological convergence - that become apparent as we reel the tape backwards; points which have left their "indelible stamp" - which we can actually measure and quantify with genetics.

None of this makes us "half banana" or "half mouse" because mice and bananas have also been undergoing evolution. It connects us through an lca - not directly to surviving and extant populations. In that same manner, we aren't "mostly chimps" so much that both chimps and ourselves are still "mostly" our lca. Understand?

You used “Common Ancestor” few times in your above explanation. What are your links with your common ancestors apart from DNA similarities?

Evolution is variation in allele frequency with traits being passed to subsequent generations via hereditary. That's it. That's all it is. Abiogenesis is a chemical process involving the transfer of early carbon compounds into organic molecules that resulted in life these are separate studies involving separate and different areas of expertise.

They are different spheres of studies but evolution has no meaning without abiogenesis. No first living cell and no evolution. Easy!

Further neither of these fields has anything to do with the possible existence or no existence of god.

True.

Most people who accept evolution believe in god, and most people who believe in god accept evolution.

Let me correct this sentence. “Most people who accept evolution believe in god, and most people who accept in evolution believe in god.”

I've only read bits of the thread so I don't know if what I'm about to type has already been covered.

Yes humans are relatively closely related to cats in the animal kingdom.
What do we have the same as cats?
Similar digestive system, respiratory system, sex organs, urinary tract kidneys and so on.
We even have pretty much the same facial expressions, you don't have to be a cat expert to know a cat's moods, they scowl when angry, look sad, look content.
We are great apes and other apes in the animal family are going to be even more similar to us than cats, which they are.

So who is your closer ancestor the cat or the ape?

Another thing is that evolution has nothing to do with how life started.

That is why evolutionary process is blind, unguided, and mindless.

We have had Muslims come on this forum and tell us that the quran is amazing because a scientific miracle of the quran is describing evolution in it's verses, and I've heard this on a Muslim forum before also.

This is something new for me. Please give me the link, as I am feeling very curious to see those arguments.

The bottom line is
Not being able to explain the beginning of life doesn't by default mean god exists.

Sure! That is not a default for the non-existence of God either.

Evolution is the theory of how life evolved after the beginning of life, that's why it's called evolution.

This is one of my major argument in this post. According to Cambrian records, living things appeared as a whole and complete species. There is no evidence that Cambrian species evolved out from species in the Pre-Cambrian stratum. More interestingly Pre-Cambrian stratum have no traces for complex life form. How that happened, science do not have answer for that. Cambrian myth is the sufficient evidence that life appeared abruptly without any interference of evolution.

Don't try and arrogantly say you stunned people into silence by asking the question "Where did life begin". It just sounds patronizing.

Well that is the reality whether you like it or not.

The fact is that you don't know and most likely no one knows, but you believe a 1400 year old myth that god said the word "Be" to some dust, and there's other people believe there's probably a more logical solution than this.

No one here justifies their lack of belief in God with evolution, so what are you even on about?

Don’t look at things locally but look at them globally. Look what our favourite celebrity Mr. Dawkins has to say in this concern.

“What I want to urge upon you is militant atheism. Here I only want to make a point that the elegance of Darwinism is corrosive to religion precisely because it is so elegant, so parsimonious, so powerful, so economically powerful. The god theory is not just the bad theory it turns out to be in principle incapable of doing the job required of it.
So returning to the tactics and the evolution lobby I want to argue that rocking the boat maybe just the right thing to do. My approaching to attacking creationism is unlike the evolution lobby; my approach in attacking creationism is to attack religion as a whole. But that’s putting it too negatively. If I was a person who would be interested in preserving religious faith then I would be very afraid of the positive power of the evolutionary science, any science generally but evolution in particular to inspire and enthral precisely because it is ATHEISTIC.”
Richard Dawkins

(26th July 2014 14:15)Harris Wrote: On the contrary, Theory of Evolution seriously lacks evidence. On the other side the belief that God does not exist is self-contradictory due to the existence intelligible universe and human conscious.

Not believing God exists contains no contradictions. Wow, that was easy and required no thought at all! I'm beginning to see why you love making unsupported assertions so much!

It is because you skipped the real part. When you eliminate God, it creates a logical vacuum (a nothingness). So your tight spot is now, you are left in a situation where there is no God, you are not willing to replace God with nothingness in the best-case scenario, and you have no alternate to make a substitution for nothingness. On the other side, you have an intelligible Universe because everything in the universe is running according to fixed laws where every part of it is intelligently designed.

(26th July 2014 14:15)Harris Wrote: As a replacement for “BE,” can you offer any scientific explanation how life began?

Several, but if there were no plausible scientifica explanations for how life might have begun, it doesn't add even a fraction of a percent to the probability that YOUR explanation is correct. Using an argument from ignorance (you don't know, therefore I'm right) means you're failing before you even get started.

It does not add even a fraction of a percent to the probability that God does not exist, Either.

(26th July 2014 14:15)Harris Wrote: Unfortunately, there is no moral code in Atheism, which can provide moral code of conduct to the followers of Atheism.

There's no moral code in theism, either, genius.

Quran and tradition of Prophet Mohammad teach exactly how a person should live a social life. We (Muslims) have very rich moral instructions in form of Quran and in from of the traditions of Prophet Mohammad.

(26th July 2014 14:15)Harris Wrote: Without having a moral code, people have little or no knowledge about ethics, about right and wrong, good and bad, virtue and vice, etc. if they are good then it is for the fear of punishment.

Just because atheism and theism doesn't have a moral code doesn't mean atheists and theists don't have moral codes.

For sure, Atheism has no moral code. Almost all religions of the world had given comprehensive details on moral codes to their followers except Atheism.

(26th July 2014 14:15)Harris Wrote: One essential condition for being a moral person is that the agent must have the relevant understanding (or capacity for understanding) of what the external requirements of morality are. Exactly how much understanding is required is not easy to specify if you do not have a moral code.

We have moral codes, just as much as theists have, and we're often better at following them.

No doubt that an atheist can live superior moral life than a theist who even after having all the wealth of moral code may live no more than an animal life. However, if a person do not have a proper moral code then he is at a risk to follow all his wild desires blindly as he lacks the proper instructions on how to control his desires. Moral code in fact give the knowledge on human values and teach how to respect each other. Moral is a big topic.

Atheist can live a good moral life because conscience is one of the innate properties of human beings. We are also intellectual beings by nature. Like we need academy to increase and polish our intellect same way we also need proper moral code to refine our human values for our healthy and peaceful social life. We are moral beings and moral education is inevitable for us.

(26th July 2014 14:15)Harris Wrote: Exactly, Science has limitations and it cannot address to the phenomenon, which transcend the material world.

True. Of course, NO method of obtaining knowledge can address phenomena that transcend the material world. If there were, people who use the same method would reach the same conclusions about them.

I do not agree with you when you say, “NO method of obtaining knowledge can address phenomena that transcend the material world.”
We are intellectual beings and our intellect not only depends on our physical experiences but also on our non-physical experiences. For example, we experience the feeling of love, which no material science can define. You cannot reject the concept of love no matter how materialistic your mind is. These immaterial feelings have a very profound impact on your personality where they actually structure your behaviour.

In the race of materialism, people simply forgot that they have very powerful mind that can reach transcendent world only by the use of correct logic.


“Do they not reflect in their own minds? Not but for just ends and for a term appointed, did Allah create the heavens and the earth, and all between them: yet are there truly many among men who deny the meeting with their Lord (at the Resurrection)!”
Ar Ruum (30)
-Verse 8-

It is Allah Who takes away the souls at the time of their death, and those that die not during their sleep. He keeps those (souls) for which He has ordained death and sends the rest for a term appointed. Verily, in this are signs for a people who think deeply.
Az-Zumar (39)
-Verse 42-

(26th July 2014 14:15)Harris Wrote: Following Quran is by no means a lazy act.

It's lazy to assume it contains all the answers rather than doing the work to determine what is really most likely to be the case.

It is a wrong idea because Quran is not a book of science, philosophy, etc. The subject of Quran is Human Being and human deeds. This scripture directly threaten people who transgress all moral values to achieve their pleasures and on the other side Quran gives good tidings to those who control their desires in Good Faith.

It's hard to follow, but at least it saves you the mental effort of trying to figure things out based on evidence and reason.

You can never produce scientific evidence for your love to someone.

(26th July 2014 14:15)Harris Wrote: How much I know Theory of Evolution and Natural selection do not have hard scientific facts. Richard Dawkins wrote:

“Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind’s eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vison, no foresight, and no sight at all.”
Page 5
The Blind Watchmaker
Richard Dawkins.

I do not think above statement, by any means, a Scientific Fact.

So you think Natural Selection has a mind? Because Dawkins is saying it doesn't and you seem to be claiming that he's not justified in saying that.

If you prove that Natural Selection has mind then it is equivalent to God.
If Natural Selection is blind, unconscious, unguided process (which is in fact the case) then it is nothing more but a DELUSION.

(26th July 2014 14:15)Harris Wrote: You should study some of the work of Thomas Nagel. Maybe he would take you out from your Evolutionary delusions.

The Nagel who is an atheist who believes in Intelligent Design rather than Creationism?

He don’t believe in Intelligent Design neither in Creationism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Nagel

Not very choosy about where you get your support are you? It's almost like you don't have to believe in evolution to be an atheist, like we keep telling you.

Thinking minds whether atheist or not cannot take absurd as fact. At least Nagel is an honest atheist.

(26th July 2014 14:15)Harris Wrote: If you have evolved a new type of virus from some existing virus then this is not even close to what theory of evolution is claiming.

That is all that evolution claims: that new species develop from previous species. Abiogenesis is a separate subject.

Unfortunately, claim that new better species developed from the old and lesser species do not have any solid scientific evidence in support. Although abiogenesis is a separate study, yet without abiogenesis theory of evolution has no meanings. No first cell, no evolution.

Allah could have poofed the first bacteria into existence out of thin air and evolution would still be the explanation that best fits the evidence for why life is so diverse.

There is no scientific proof for your kind of evolution. Nagel said people would use this concept to make jokes only after two or three generations.

Do you have any evidence for this claim? I believe it is false.

Yup, it's false. In every embryo there are hundreds of mutations, most of which are neutral or have no effect. Some of these result in slight changes in morphology and can be passed down in later generations.

Just a moment ago you said that 100% of mutations were injurious. You can't even keep your own lies straight. This, too, is false.

Indeed. In fact beneficial and deleterious mutations occur at about equal rates with deleterious being only slightly more common. But as stated above most mutations are neutral in effect and are not selected for or against.

Please read my main article there I had given some details on mutations.

We're already aware that you don't like evolution because of the conclusions it reaches rather than the science it's based on;

Its not a matter of likeness or not, I repeatedly said that the evolution in which you have faith is not science at all. People have tried to prove it through scientific methods but they only faced failures. Whatever examples they are trying to give are for adaptations and variations in similar species, nothing else.

but the theory of evolution is separate from hypotheses of abiogenesis. It is not an explanation for why there's life on earth, it's an explanation for why we have such a diversity of species. You don't even know what it is that you're trying to argue against.

Evolution is not science its FAITH. This is my argument. New and better species evolve from old and inferior species is absurd not science.

(26th July 2014 15:35)Harris Wrote: I presume you have read 100s of hard books. However, for some unknown reason, it seems you are not willing to give few hard quotes from those hard books to support your case.

As a rule, we don't quote books to support our case. Quotations are usually (though not necessarily) a fallacioius appeal to authority and a demonstration that one doesn't understand what one is arguing well enough to be able to put it in one's own words.

I don’t understand your idea here. If Dawkins and I share same idea but Dawkins expressed that idea in a much eloquent manner then why should I not quote him directly to make my point?

It may be worth mentioning that I though god was a silly concept way before I'd heard of evolution.

So you have adopted the silly concept of evolution immediately because for you concept of God was silly.

Darwin started with the diversity of species and worked backwards. Evolution is not founded on abiogenesis in any way. It's what the evidence supports no matter what the evidence of life is.

Why do you think you understand the flaws of evolution so well when you demonstrably understand what evolution actually is so poorly?

Without a base how comes something is called theory at all. There is a big hole beneath the tree of life and that tree of life is hanging in the air.

If Atheism is not a FAITH at all or say LACK of FAITH in God then how your mind adopted the concept that God does not exist. Funny isn’t it?

I'll bet you Stimbo had not adopted the concept that God does not exist. I know I haven't. That's how badly you misunderstand atheism.

“There is no God,” it is a BELIEF. You like it or not but this is the truth. You can’t run away by saying it is a lack of Belief. You believe in the non-existence of God without any doubt.

I'd advise you to ask what we think instead of telling us, but from your behavior so far, my mind has adopted the concept that you are incapable of understanding what other people actually say because you must make everything you hear fit into your preconceptions.

(26th July 2014 18:45)little_monkey Wrote: There's a difference between "having beliefs" and "having faith". If I believe that the universe can be comprehended it's because there is an overwhelming body of evidence supporting that belief. OTOH, faith is belief in spite of no or insufficient evidence.

That is the point. If you do not have any faith then no matter how many evidences you have you will not believe. Faith is essential for your belief.

If you have faith in someone or something, you feel confident about their ability or goodness even without having any evidence. Belief is something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion. Belief may require, but not necessarily, the evidence.

All this reduces to the fact that without faith, belief has no meaning. If you do not have faith in science, you cannot do science no matter it puts mountain of evidence in front of you.

The fallacy of equivocation is using a word with multiple meaning misleadingly. Faith is a word that is easy to equivocate, implying that posessing it one sense (trust in something or someone) possesses it in the other sense as well (belief based on spiritual apprehension).

Alright! If you think I am not doing justice with FAITH and BELIEF then let us see what Alan Wilson British-born philosopher thinks about these two terms. He wrote:

“We must here make a clear distinction between belief and faith, because, in general practice, belief has come to mean a state of mind which is almost the opposite of faith. Belief, as I use the word here, is the insistence that the truth is what one would “lief” or wish it to be. The believer will open his mind to the truth on the condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes. Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith lets go. In this sense of the word, faith is the essential virtue of science, and likewise of any religion that is not self-deception.”

The Wisdom of Insecurity: A message for an age of anxiety
Alan Wilson Watts

Harris Wrote: So, you mean to say that atheist is living without having a particular philosophy of life or conception of the world. Isn’t it a pitiful situation, if so?

You know, Harris, you're clearly smart enough that I can tell you don't HAVE to be a moron, it's a choice you're making.

No, it does not follow that since atheism is not a philosophy of life or conception of the world that atheists are living without having a particular philosophy of life or conception of the world. It just means their philosophy and worldview isn't atheism.

Very interesting!

And guess what: your philosophy and world view aren't theism. Theism is the opinion that some sort of God or gods exist, and beyond that you could be a Muslim praying five times a day or an Aztec priest cutting out people's hearts to feed the gods on holidays.

Hmmm! You have put a Muslim who prays five times a day in parallel with someone who cuts people’s heart to feed the gods on holidays. Not a fair parallel.

You KNOW that you have to know more about someone than that they are some kind of theist to guess at what else they believe, and you've been repeatedly informed that atheists are diverse (though maybe not as diverse as theists, of which there are easily 50,000 flavors), so only willful ignorance can explain your statement.

If you think I am not trying to understand the individuals then you are correct. My main concern is the ideology and its overall affects over population. Refusal from the existence of God has a direct impact (in a negative sense) over the innate morals. That is what I have learned so far through my studies of atheistic psychology.

Harris Wrote: Don't get upset. I love you all.

I think you're lying. Nothing you've said shows that you love us. You clearly hold us in contempt and havent' the slightest interest in understanding us better than you already think you do. If you think it's true that you love us, I pity you, for that would indicate you don't have a clue what love really is.

If you argue with your beloved person, does that mean you don’t love him/her or he/she don’t love you? I am discussing with you and arguing with you and this is the sign that I love you.

You do realize that you are asking that question of someone who thinks that everything that comes out of Dawkin's mouth re: evolution, is a lie, correct?

Correct!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH2aLaCtAm4

In what way is repeatedly telling you that whether evolution is true has nothing to do with whether or not God is real 'persistent to put evolution in place of God'?

It is because even after I have demonstrated that theory of evolution has deep flaws by showing scientific facts, logic, and comments of other scientists and philosophers (including atheists); you have closed your eyes on all that stuff. This is the pure sign of your FAITH and BELIEF in the theory of evolution.

I think most people who try to undermine the theory of evolution in the name of their God do more damage to the credibility of the idea of God than evolution ever could.

No! I am not undermining evolution for my God but it is Science and Philosophy, which are undermining evolution to keep them clean from absurd.

Thank you. Without people like you, the number of people who choose rational skepticism would likely not be rising so quickly. There's nothing like people illustrating the poverty of one side to help those on the fence realize the other side is the one where the less stupid people are.

I am happy to be with the people who are bold to say “Absurd” to an Absurd i.e. new species evolve from different and inferior species

Would you start posting on Atheistforums.com as well, please? You're needed in more places. I can never aspire to do as much for skepticism as you do.

I love to be in other places but unfortunately, physically I can’t do more than what I am doing here.

So now you're claiming that a chimp's DNA being 98% similar to human compared to a cat's DNA being 90% similar and therefore chimps being more closely related to humans genetically than cats is just too mathematically complex for you to grasp?

Read my main article “Is Evolution a science or a Faith” for the answer.

Are you even listening? Evolution has nothing to do with the formation of life. That's a separate theory called abiogenesis, and your desperate insistence that the two are one and the same is just making you look foolish. Evolution is an aspect of population genetics, and it acts upon genes exclusively; given this, it only begins to work when there actually are genes, meaning that it only starts working once we already have life with genetic codes.
If you want to doubt abiogenesis go right ahead, but don't pretend it's something it's not.

Yes, dear! I am listening you with all of my devotions. It is, perhaps, on the contrary that you are the one who is not trying to understand what point I am making.
Regardless what differences evolution and abiogenesis have, evolution is dependent over abiogenesis. Without having abiogenesis at the root level, the whole structure of evolution has simply no meaning. You always need a foundation for a building. You cannot raise a building if you do not have a foundation in first place. I hope I have made my point clear this time. Theory of Evolution is wrong right from its root level. In fact it has no roots at all.

I am pleased to see the writing above because it contains the word god. The concept of God is naturally embossed over our conscious. You can take it serious or not but you can negate it only by denying your own conscious person.

That's not true: the Piraha tribe is an isolated human population without a concept of god at all. Are you saying that they're lying, when they say that?

Just as I can’t judge your mind similarly you can’t be confident what the minds of other people have in them. You know your feelings exactly and you are capable to disguise them for others for whatever reason. Most of the historic and pre-historic records show that overwhelming majority of people in all times were inclined towards the concept of God or Deity, which is a clear proof that concept of God is embedded into our conscience by nature.

I agree that gravity doesn’t give an explanation about the birth of the first cell. But the trouble here is that no one is believing that gravity has produced life. All what you are saying is evolution and natural selection responsible for the life on earth. Therefore, your example does not fit in here.

Except that nobody is saying that evolution produced life either. We attribute the current diversity of life to evolution because it's observable, but evolution by natural selection can only act upon life that already exists, it doesn't create life from non life. That's why what you're saying is so nonsensical, you're literally talking about a completely different thing.

You are saying that somehow a living cell appeared on earth with its entire DNA code embedded on its nucleus and evolution was standing somewhere nearby waiting for its maturity to marry with her and spread tremendous variety of life forms all over the planet. I am hearing that joke on daily basis. In your efforts to educate me, you are missing all of my common-sense points!

My argument is why people are confident on how the first life form looked like. Why people think it was the cell and not something complex? No matter whatever was the first life form, how evolution got it right? Is evolution something, which is some, built in quality (something like DNA code) or is it some external force? In any case, evolution is not an intelligent force and this makes the things even worse.

Abiogenesis and evolution are not separate things, they are deeply interconnected with each other.

I don't care that you think that; what you think is meaningless here. The two are definitionally different.

Quote:Tell me if there was no first cell then would evolution (in which you believe) ever happened and do you think you and me were corresponding with each other here?

If there was no initial life form, there would be no evolution. It's that simple. Evolution requires two things: a self replicating life form, and an environment to act upon it. Without those, no evolution.

So for this reason I am saying that abiogenesis and evolution are interrelated concepts. Evolution depends on the first life cell which abiogenesis trying to explain why and how it came into existence.

Further, what makes you believe that life started from the first living cell. Maybe life has started in absolutely different way.

I don't believe anything about how life started, because there's not enough information to make a judgment about it. I'm comfortable suspending my belief until the evidence comes in: why aren't you?

I am against the idea of developing whole theory over mere conjectures.

As far I know an axiom is a statement or proposition that is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true. You are saying that these are basal assumption made in order to actually function. In other words axiom is an idea that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof.

Uh, we have plenty of evidence that the universe will remain intelligible. It has, every day of my life, without exception. That's evidence. As to my other axioms, well, employing them in my day to day life has provided results consistent with my expectations for if those axioms were true... that's evidence too. I know why you're so excited to drag us down to your level, but it's not going to work. Unfortunately for you, I can just point to my continued survival on the planet as evidence that my axiomatic beliefs are working just fine at their intended purpose.

The important point to which I am trying to draw your attention to is how that statement, proposition, or basal assumption first appeared in your mind. I think it is not comming in form of dream, hallucination, vision, revelation, etc. It is obviously initiated after you have observed something that clicks some idea in you. You can developed that idea only if you have faith in what you have observed.

Yes, I've already called you on your dishonest equivocation between reasonable expectations of a coherent world, reverified every day by the fact that the world is coherent, and capital F Faith in god. You don't need to repeat the same fallacy.

I have already given many logical evidences for the existence of God. They are looking towards for your second glance.

All you've done is present a series of known falsehoods and then dismissed or ignored everyone who has called you on them. I'm still waiting on you to acknowledge and admit that you quote mined Darwin in your other thread, something you haven't even appeared to look at yet.

Not I but you have not looked at my response. That response is still there and waiting for you.

Perhaps it is you who have closed eyes on obvious facts that I have presented in my post and in the responses.

You still don't know what evolution is. If you disagree, then please define evolution for us.


For me evolution is your FAITH
I neither support Ben nor Dawkins. However, I have heard dawkins lying deliberately and purposefully. I do not trust in anything what Dawkins said. For me he is the king of hypocrite. Only follow few of his interviews and you will see how cunning he is in manipulating his words.

Do you have evidence of any of this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH2aLaCtAm4

More importantly, will you even acknowledge that when you said Dawkins believed in space aliens seeding life on earth, you were wrong?

What he said I heard. It is simple as that. Dawkins is a scientist and he cannot deny facts in the air no matter how much he hates those facts (ID)

Harris Wrote: If there is no God or anything supernatural (a creator) then there is nothing.

Is someone paying you money to say increasingly stupid things? If there is no God or anything supernatural, all that's left is everything that exists.

f you have FAITH in nothingness instead of God only then you can have belief in things like evolution, multiuniverse, blind and unguided forces etc.

I don't even believe there ever was actual nothingness, and I've never met an atheist who does. That's how badly you misunderstand us. [/quote]

It seems you are supporting the following statement:

“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.”
Page 227
The Grand Design
By Stephen W. Hawking

Without having Faith in something, you cannot have belief in that thing. In any case FAITH is crucial for mind to work or not to work.

Not faith with a capital 'F'. The only faith our minds need to function day-to-day is that which is best defined as 'justified confidence or trust in a person or thing', not 'belief without evidence or proof'. I need enough faith to sit in a chair without worrying it will collapse or turn into a parsnip, I clearly don't need to believe that it wouldn't support me if not for the will of a divine being. I'm not THAT heavy.

Consider the following difference between Faith and Belief and then review your above statement in the light of it.

“We must here make a clear distinction between belief and faith, because, in general practice, belief has come to mean a state of mind which is almost the opposite of faith. Belief, as I use the word here, is the insistence that the truth is what one would “lief” or wish it to be. The believer will open his mind to the truth on the condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes. Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith lets go. In this sense of the word, faith is the essential virtue of science, and likewise of any religion that is not self-deception.”

The Wisdom of Insecurity: A message for an age of anxiety
Alan Wilson Watts

Mr.wizard Wrote: We get the concept of god not existing from the claim you make that god exists. Its a default position to the claim, you claim god exists, we say we don't believe your claim. Why is this so hard to understand?

No, I am not only saying God exist. I am giving logical evidence from science and nature. You are concentrating only on the mechanism but not the agency, which has produced this mechanism, and running it. Perhaps, because you cannot perceive that agency with your direct senses.

Perhaps, because you cannot perceive that agency with your direct senses either, so it is literally impossible for you to actually know what you're talking about on the matter. Why should we believe your claims about an entity completely beyond your ability to grasp even if it did exist?

That means you do not have to believe in your senses, your feelings, your emotions, your thoughts because even they exist they are beyond your ability to grasp by means of science.

(Today 13:19)Harris Wrote: It is just as if you are saying electronic circuitry inside Sony TV is more important than Akio Morita. Well it is explaining how the circuitry works but it is not if I ask you the question, how that circuitry does comes into existence in first place.

It's just as if you have a piece of electronic circuitry with no way to determine who made it and admitting there's no way you can honestly say who made it.

That shows you completely missed my point. I am saying, if you find a TV and you don’t know who made it that doesn’t mean you do not have idea whether human made that TV or it is evolved by some unguided, blind, and mindless process.

(Today 13:19)Harris Wrote: At this stage, everybody got speechless.

Harris, Harris, wake up! You're drifting off into some kind of dream where other people react to the stupid things you say the way you wish they would.

Yes, we are already discussing these questions for quite some time now. Yet, I haven’t got proper answers.

If there is no God then how Universe came into being? No answer
If no one knows how life started in first place and how that life looked in its initial form then how comes there is a theory that is explaining how that life evolved? No answer.
Without having a moral code why should one live a moral life? No answer
If death is the end of everything then what about justice? No answer

(Today 16:42)Harris Wrote:
(Today 05:46)Esquilax Wrote: (Today 03:56)Harris Wrote: If abiogenesis is not the base of evolution, then how you justify the evolution in the first place.


We don't know. And that's it.

Very interestng, there is no foundation yet there is a big theory with so may intricate details. More interestengly everyone seems to be happy with this theory without even knowing this theory at its root level.

The foundation of the modern synthesis is the multiple lines of evidence supporting common descent modified by the interaction of natural variations with natural selection, which is what evolution is.

What's very interesting is how the fact that evolution is not and never was founded on abiogenesis is completely incapable of penetrating your invincible ignorance.

You are saying evolution is not based on spontaneous appearance of life. But that has not solved the question. Without the first appearance of life, evolution is not possible. No matter life appeared spontaneously or otherwise evolution starts only after life came into existence. It’s a very simple thing to understand. So the question remains, if no one know how life came into existence in first place and no one knows how that life form looked like then how comes there is a theory that is explaining how that life evolved from that unknown life form?

(Today 13:19)Harris Wrote: Abiogenesis and evolution are not separate things, they are deeply interconnected with each other. Tell me if there was no first cell then would evolution (in which you believe) ever happened and do you think you and me were corresponding with each other here?

If there was no first cell, we wouldn't be standing here even if there IS a God.

You don’t know whether God has created life in form of cell or in form of something else. Secondly, your answer is the confirmation that abiogenesis and evolution are not separate thing; they are rather deeply interconnected with each other. No life, no evolution.

(Today 13:19)Harris Wrote: Further, what makes you believe that life started from the first living cell. Maybe life has started in absolutely different way.

It doesn't matter how it started, evolution is something that happens to populations of reproducing organisms over time.

Apart from technical definitions of evolution, tell me what the mechanism of evolution is. Perhaps you believe in it as an unguided and mindless process, which took advantage from chance and luck to perform its activities.

However the first reproducing organisms came into being, evolution comes into play afterwards.

Thank you for this confirmation.

No, you still don't get it! We don't need evolution to not believe in your god claim, the only reason people are defending the theory is because your understanding of evolution is flawed.

Theory of evolution is very fragile because of the loopholes it has. I tried to draw your attention to this point by means of different scientific evidences. If this theory is standing today, it is only because of its political backing.

Even if evolution was completely false I still would not except your god claim because evolution being false is not proof of your god.

That is fair enough. No, argument. I never tried to prove God by disproving evolution.

I don't care about logic in a vacuum, divorced from reality. If your logical games don't match up to anything real (and which would require additional defending), what's the point? I can prove, logically, that elephants are pink, water is poisonous, or any number of other scenarios. All that will have happened at the end of the exercise is we'll have wasted time and bandwith on a pointlessly boring circle jerk. (Not saying that circle jerks are necessarily pointless or boring, but real ones at least have entertainment value.)

However, that's not even the point. My question to you was in response to your contention that atheists believe "God" doesn't exist. My position is I lack the belief that the character does exist. Now the ball is in your court.

“There is no God,” it is a BELIEF. You like it or not but this is the truth. You can’t run away by saying it is a lack of Belief. You believe in the non-existence of God without any doubt.

Your logic is far too reductionist to be useful for anything but rhetoric, mainly because you're confusing denotations of both faith and belief. Let's look at the definition of belief to see what you're up to:
The Oxford English Dictionary Wroteefinition of belief in English:
belief
Syllabification: be•lief
Pronunciation: /biˈlēf /
NOUN

1 An acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists:
his belief in the value of hard work
a belief that solitude nourishes creativity

1.1 Something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion or conviction:
contrary to popular belief, Aramaic is a living language
we’re prepared to fight for our beliefs

1.2 A religious conviction:
Christian beliefs
I’m afraid to say belief has gone
local beliefs and customs

2 (belief in) Trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something:
a belief in democratic politics
I’ve still got belief in myself

[emphasis added by Thump to differentiate examples from definitions]

As you can see, you're picking the two denotations which support your argument, and ignoring the two which apply to science, (1 & 1.1). Cherry-picking your definitions does little to buttress your point, especially when you are clearly ignoring those which undermine it.
(Yesterday 06:53)Harris Wrote: Science depends on faith, without FAITH, our minds reject any evidence.

So let's do the same exercise with faith:
The Oxford English Dictionary Wroteefinition of faith in English:
faith
Syllabification: faith
Pronunciation: /fāTH /
NOUN

1 Complete trust or confidence in someone or something:
this restores one’s faith in politicians

2 Strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.

2.1 A system of religious belief:
the Christian faith

2.2 A strongly held belief or theory:
the faith that life will expand until it fills the universe

[Again, emphases added by your ob'd'nt servant]

As you can see, the only denotation that seems to touch on faith's application to science seems to be the fourth one. However, it is clear from the example sentence that they are using the colloquial meaning of theory and therefore not referencing science. To ensure that this was the case, I linked to their "Get More Examples" link and got these:
The OED Wrote:Consider a faith, a belief system, as a theory about how the universe works.

This at least is the assumption of many writers and readers, and in Latin America it amounts to something like a political faith.

Arthur had a strong faith and belief in Rome and what it stood for, but that changes in the movie.

And clearly they are using "theory" in the colloquial sense, except in the first one, which is a questionable conflation of "faith", "belief", and "theory".

Getting back to the denotations of faith:

1) doesn't apply to science because in the scientific method there is no such thing as "complete trust or confidence"; indeed the very acceptibility of a theory depends in part upon its supporting observations and experiments being replicable (which is another way of saying "we don't trust your results, we want to see for ourselves").

2) is the standard religious conception of faith.

3) is the sociocultural construct of faith; it is a form of synechdoche, usoing a part of something to represent the whole (in this case, using faith to represent religion).

4) is a future-tense variation on belief.

Clearly, none of those denotations apply to science. So please, quit equivocating your faith with a process which demands evidence.

It strikes me as an insecure faith that would strive to equivocate itself with that which it detests, simply in order to garner the cache that its apposite carries. If your religion were a more powerful way of grokking the Universe, where are its inventions? They are in the arts. Where are its discoveries? They are in the field of psychology, that wobbliest of fields. Where is its universal application? Certainly not on this Earth. You cannot convincefive billion others of the truth of your faith, yet you bleat on about science on a computer posting on the internet.

If your faith reflected reality, you should be able to simply pray to change our minds. How galling it must be to you that you must use the tools of science to pick up the slack of "unanswered" prayers.

“We must here make a clear distinction between belief and faith, because, in general practice, belief has come to mean a state of mind which is almost the opposite of faith. Belief, as I use the word here, is the insistence that the truth is what one would “lief” or wish it to be. The believer will open his mind to the truth on the condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and wishes. Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith lets go. In this sense of the word, faith is the essential virtue of science, and likewise of any religion that is not self-deception.”

The Wisdom of Insecurity: A message for an age of anxiety
Alan Wilson Watts

Please quote a single post of mine in which I ever said anything approaching this.

For the sake of argument, if I grant that you never said that ATHEISM IS NOT A FAITH. Can I then take it that you are saying ATHEISM IS IN FACT A FAITH?

[quote='Thumpalumpacus' pid='71910

[StuW]

Really ? Your reply to my post was LOL? how long did it take to come up with that?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

"Logical"

:-|