Origin of Language

[JMT]

No matter what beliefs one may profess; atheist, agnostic, buddhist, there is no uniformity across the board to the adherent's views. I was looking for generalities, as I mentioned in several early posts. They might be representative in their broad frame of reference, but we'd have to know a lot more than we know in order to know that.

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Ok, but let's not get all blown out of proportion. Don't like the word evolutionism. Ok, fine, evolutionary theory. But actually it is defined elsewhere as a social theory developed in the 19th century and developing into the 20th century in it's broadness of meaning.

http://www.anthrobase.com/Dic/eng/def/evolutionism.htm

https://www.encyclopedia.com/science-and...olutionism

But it really doesn't matter too much, because I was taught cosmic, chemical and biological evolution in the university. And there is no question that science purports that evolution is the hub of all the sciences[/. Anyone who denies this just hasn't taken or paid attention in to what is being taught in university level classes in the sciences. In other words, it's just a core belief that serves as an interpretive framework for evidences. I'm sorry you don't like the word I used, or the website, but it is a word. A word may enter and exit dictionaries based on commonality of usage in a language population.

I focused on the word because more or less the only people that use that word anymore have a skewed, incorrectly-defined view of what evolution means, and you sort of confirmed that by linking to a site that can't even get the definition of evolution right.  Unless you don't accept the definition given by that site, in which case I've no idea why you linked to it.


And you're right!  Words do enter and exit the lexicon...and "evolutionism" is currently a worthless term, outside of creationist circles.  Glad we agree there.

And I don't understand why you call the theory of evolution to be a "core belief".  It's not a value judgment or belief system or moral proclamation.  It's a model that currently best describes what we see in nature, and that model has been and is helpful in examining other parts of nature.  

Why are you focusing on evolution anyway?  Atheists are free to absolutely reject evolution (they'd be being utterly anti-scientific and irrational), and..once again...billions of Christians accept evolution as well.  So it's clearly not an a/theism problem.

Ok, it's a "core idea." Are you denying that?

Why did I use that site? I don't know, just typed in the word and it came up. Had no idea it was Christian. Obviously I'd heard the word. Where did I hear it? I have no idea. I've been around science and Christianity for decades.

And since belief or faith just means confidence or full assurance in something, it's not necessarily a "religious term" implying some value judgment. The FDIC had posted at my bank for years "(b) SENSE OF CONGRESS.--In view of the findings and declarations contained in subsection (a), it is the sense of the Congress that it should reaffirm that deposits up to the statutorily prescribed amount in federally insured depository institutions are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States." I really don't think they're making a moral or value judgment or belief system statement there!

As I mentioned before, maybe I need to find an "evolution forum," since I'll get more help there for the questions I'm trying to answer. But now I'm kinda locked in for the day, if you know what I mean. LOL. I'm totally willing to move on though, from evolution....As a last word, which model of evolution best explains nature? They aren't in agreement on this...Is it gradualistic, is it catastrophic? Just sayin....

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-ism just describes something as a philosophy or system. So I don't know why that's a big deal. Anyway, atheists use language, so I just wondered how they justified it began. I'll go introduce myself now. LOL

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The main reason for language is that the human brains are capable of generating it and the human vocal cords are capable of producing it.  A lot of it has to do with abstract and symbolic thinking, again a capacity facilitated by brain structure.

There are many types of intraspecies communication seen throughout the animal kingdom, and even among humans there are non-linguistic communications in use, such as body language and paraverbal communication, such as the actual inflections used to convey different meanings with identical word combinations.  For example:

"I stole your lunch." (falling inflection, assertion of fact)
"I stole your lunch?" (rising inflection, expressing denial and incredulity)

I agree with all this. Well stated. I guess it just pushes the question back further, to why the human brain is structured for language and why the human vocal chords are as well. Why do we as an animal species have these particular structures? I think that's where I'm trying to get to, really. Interesting example with inflection. Good observation...