Hullo! My first post.

[Kirby D. P.]

Welcome aboard!

THANX!!!

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Hello, and welcome to the forums.

THANK YOU!

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Welcome aboard.

 I have absolutely no faith in tomorrow’s sunrise.

One of my pet peeves as well.  I hear what a theist describes as their faith.....and regardless of what argument they want to have the truth remains that my "x" in the sun rising tomorrow is not the same thing as their faith in a god.  They can call it the same thing from here until the next sunrise....but that won;t change just because of their insistence or persistence.

2. Evolution by natural selection v. Abiogenesis
In my experience, evolution is almost only ever raised during theist/atheist dialogue by the theists. I have never first broached the subject myself. Though, being a big fan of Darwinian evolution, I am only too happy to dive in if someone else brings it up. Then, all too often, both parties show their imperfect understanding of the concept when the theist asks, “Then how do you explain where life came from?“ And the atheist responds, “You’re talking about the origin of life, or ‘abiogenesis.’ That has nothing to do with evolution.“
 
Wrong. 

In the face of the constant chorus "life can;t come from nothing!" from people who think they have a problem with evolutionary theory..it;s both accurate and necesarry to inform them that the one has nothing to do with the other.  They have issues with some hypothesis of abiogenesis.  Modern synth is the combination of darwinian selection and mendelian genetics.  While some form of selection may be at play in whatever hypothesis of abiogenesis is true (if any)...mendelian genetics is most certainly not.  Modern synth would stand even if god poofed the first bit of life into existence, just to really drive the futility home.  It stands on it;s own merits, not on the merits of any particular notion of how life initially came to be.  It;s what happens to life, not how life happened.

Truth be told..they usually have a whole basket full of problems with both...but those problems are, ofc, their own problems, lol. 

Don’t ever let anybody tell you you can’t get morals or “good” or “evil” from the laws of nature. It’s the only place they DO come from.

Agreed, they find their origins and their ultimate observations there...but it;s useful to point out that they don;t find their justification there in an ethical sense.  What is natural is not always right, and what is unnatural ( a slippery term but it gets employed alot) is not always wrong.  It may be more accurate to state that we derive our moral apparatus from evolutionary biology...but that doesnt imply or require that we conform to the strictures of our biological imperatives when we go about setting the rules of the system.   In that sense, we don;t get morals from the laws of nature.  

 But generally speaking, I don’t think atheists/skeptics/materialists insist that theists take this crushing burden of proof squarely upon their shoulders as they truly deserve.

You;re gonna like it here, then.  This place ties that rock around the neck of the people who own it and never lets loose, lol.

 roger

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Welcome to the forum

Thanks!

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Goddidit.

Thanks!

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Welcome to AF

Thank you!

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HI , Welcome!

Thanks!

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Welcome,

Thank you.

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Welcome and thanks for the informative post!

Thank YOU.

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That IS evolution.

But it is not what Darwin was talking about.  He was talking about speciation.

Sadly, Darwin himself was a creatard.

Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Silurian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled.

Origin of Species, Chapter 14.

But I forgive him.  He did not know any better.  The residue of a bad childhood with too much religious horseshit thrown at him.

Welcome.

Thank you. 

And I readily admit that there is no current confirmed model unifying abiogenesis and evolution of living species through natural selection. I'll just be very surprised if, once one is demonstrated, it will delineate any perceptible line of demarkation between abiotic chemistry driven by selective environmental pressures in a local environment and conventional Darwinian evolution. As with any single living evolved lineage, the extreme end of the process will drastically different, but any "Rubicon" from life to lifelessness will be a necessarily arbitrary distinction around which to organize future study. And I'll bet my eye teeth that theists who haven't the foggiest idea of how evolution actually works will see it as a new weakness, not an amazing advancement of the science.