(November 15, 2010 at 8:28 pm)Lethe Wrote:(November 15, 2010 at 6:54 pm)Godschild Wrote:
Quote:I do not believe that evolution had a thing to do with compassion, that is a trait we receive from God. As for the wolves,elephants and other animals if times get hard they will sacrifice their young for the well being of the group. That is not what humans do we can see that evidence in all the starving people in the world and this is just one reason I believe in God.I would have to say I disagree on humans being unable to sacrifice members of their own species, young or old, for a 'greater good'. Soldiers being the first brand of sacrifice that comes to mind. And there were those that sacrificed humans (sometimes their own children) to deities in the hopes a sacrifice of such magnitude would placate these gods. Cannibalism among the otherwise starving has been observed on numerous occasions. As well as using other humans as 'decoys' to escape being targeted oneself. From what I've observed, humans can and do resort to desperate measures during desperate times. Then again, I don't claim to be unbiased. Ultimately I view humans as animals, undoubtedly dissimilar to your views. That isn't to say I attribute us any less value than I would did I not. I must say I adore this hunk o' rock, warts and all.
Yes I would agree that some humans have sacrificed their children to preserve their life, I do however think that those cases are the exception and not the rule. The soldier is a voluntary job and I do not think that most soldiers believe that they will die in combat, I've heard soldiers say that they are fighting for the persons on each side of them before anything else and I can't say that I blame them. I like them love this hunk o' rock, warts and all. The cowards that would use humans as decoys are something less than human in my opinion. Physically we are no different than animals, our greater mind does seperate us from animals, however it's the traits of the human that is unique to us that makes us different from animals. Most people, even christians, do not read the creation account in the book of Genesis and notice that God only created three times, I'm not going to spell all that out now but the third time God creates it was to seperate man from the animals in a very unique way and that was to give us a soul so that we could understand what we had been given and to be able to have a living relationship with Him.
I was trying to convey that the mechanism of evolution (natural selection) isn't a conscious process -- if environmental conditions permit (abundant food, medicine, fiscal support, et cetera), even genes considered to be defective will have the ability to pass on to future generations, as these defective genes don't put the human or humans at as great a disadvantage as they would under harsher conditions. So I wouldn't consider it corrupting the gene pool, as greater diversity leads to greater resilience (on the species level) to different threats.
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.
