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arPos
New Member
Netherlands
1 Post |
 Posted - 04/06/2009 : 20:13:41
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Hello and greetings from holland,
In this whole creation vs. evolution I laugh my tits off because I sincerely believe one does not exclude the other...
Ah well lets start of with myself, catholic baptized son of a orthodox mother and a pantheistic father Lernt to grow up with some of the ways in which a church might 'teach' their people, however mainly from own interest as well as the irrational relationship my parents had (it didn't last) I started to philosophical consider and reconsider existence as a whole and off course the question whether or not I believe it was created.
Ok to the subject at hand; As plato, student of socrates already formulated in ancient greece; "the question of believing is the question of where does all this come from"
Well all this, existence is comprised of energy and matter as proven by einstein (a.o.)
as to the question where there are I think 2 answers:
1) you believe it started some time, hence creation
2) you believe it never started, which would mean it is cyclical
so as we now have separated those who believe and those who don't believe we already notice that so far evolution, pantheism(which is another great greek story) or any other randomly used group is no part in these 2 relative contradictory groups.
First off I will explain that I am part of the first group, I believe that all this; energy and matter, has started once upon a time.
in conclusion to that I state that the only name I can give to that origin is god.
second off I will explain that I accept proven laws of nature fully as these are in effect the laws of god.
thirdly I will explain that I am (in conclusion to above) anti-religious yet a creationist.
Anyway lets get on else you all will fall asleep ;)
Many times when I have a debate with religious creationist they will start about the goal of existence, which I find kind of disturbing as existence seems to be a goal on itself and that's what my question is about.
So if existence (energy and matter and there relative co-existence in a symbiotic harmony) is the result of 'a creation' or 'god' so you will.
than can I conclude that the laws of nature, such as: (electro)magnetism, pressure and other forces, chemical combinations etc. would be classified as gods laws.
if so wouldn't it be fair to say that evolution is gods way to make living organisms (or even the planet as a whole if you include erosion and sedimentation into evolution) co-exist in the same symbiotic harmony as energy and matter do (or ying and yang, good and evil etc so you will)?
In short I was wondering how people here think about created evolution.
Note; please don't start about how creationistic ideas form from evolution, we can discuss that in another instance
By the way, love the site  
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 04/06/2009 : 21:34:46 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by arPos
Hello and greetings from holland |
Welcome to the Skeptic Friends Network!as to the question where there are I think 2 answers:
1) you believe it started some time, hence creation
2) you believe it never started, which would mean it is cyclical |
3) I don't know.First off I will explain that I am part of the first group, I believe that all this; energy and matter, has started once upon a time.
in conclusion to that I state that the only name I can give to that origin is god. |
Why? Why can't you call it "I don't know?" Why is "god" a better name for it? Why must it have a name at all?| second off I will explain that I accept proven laws of nature fully as these are in effect the laws of god. |
Assuming that you have correctly named the phenomenon, sure. If you are mistaken, then they are the laws of something else. They're definitely laws, though, no matter their source.So if existence (energy and matter and there relative co-existence in a symbiotic harmony) is the result of 'a creation' or 'god' so you will.
than can I conclude that the laws of nature, such as: (electro)magnetism, pressure and other forces, chemical combinations etc. would be classified as gods laws.
if so wouldn't it be fair to say that evolution is gods way to make living organisms (or even the planet as a whole if you include erosion and sedimentation into evolution) co-exist in the same symbiotic harmony as energy and matter do (or ying and yang, good and evil etc so you will)?
In short I was wondering how people here think about created evolution. |
Sounds like a "deistic evolution" to me. Why does God even matter? What difference does a deity make to the whole process, except that now you can say that everything has a "known" source, instead of "I don't know?"
Unless you're willing to state something like, "God created the universe with laws that allowed life to evolve, therefore we should __________ [fill in the blank]," then God seems like a completely superfluous concept.
In other words, unless you can find some way to distinguish a God-created universe from a universe with no God, then God doesn't matter, and isn't a better answer than "I don't know."| By the way, love the site |
I'm sure I speak for the whole staff when I say, thanks! |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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dglas
Skeptic Friend
Canada
397 Posts |
Posted - 04/06/2009 : 22:02:58 [Permalink]
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Your concept of god seems rather nebulous. Can you be a little more specific? It's impossible to determine if one can refer to it as being responsible for anything if we have no idea what it can (does) and cannot (does not) do? One can posit a nebulous first cause if one wishes, but it doesn't do anything to advance the subject matter and, since people often forge emotive and normative attitudes towards anthropomorphized first causes, it inhibits advancement of the subject matter, since people then become hesitant to let the idea go when the opportunity to actually learn something comes along.
What is the emotive content of a non-goal oriented, prime mover evolutionary engine? Why bother with god at all in this imagining? This is why deists annoy me: a fire-and-forget god doesn't provide much in the line of comfort, honestly, now does it? What are your presumptions about god that make this positing interesting at all?
If you wish to use god as an explanatory device, could you please provide some predictions that can be verified arising from it?
There is a very distinct danger in using god as a starting point, one we've seen over and over and over again, and it is this: an "explanation" like god doesn't permit of inquiry - it is just another word for we want to pretend we know something when we don't. It is an endpoint, and one that doesn't stand up to even the most shallow of cursory examination, to boot.
Before we can learn about any given thing, we must first posit that it is the sort of thing that can be learned about. This is a a necessary prerequisite for even beginning work. To posit god (as most people put forward the idea of god) is to place the subject matter well outside the realm of possible understanding. Historically, when we have assumed that god was an explanation for a given thing, we have wallowed in ignorance (or pretend knowledge under the name of mysticism). It is when we posit the explanation to be something other than god and actually try to understand that we humans acheive astonishing feats like tripling lifespans, improving standards of health and living, create mass communication (like the internet you are using now), send probes to take pictures of the earth through the rings of Saturn, and other such astonishing technological wonders. Mysticism is not just a backward step, it is a dead-end.
While it is an admirable enterprise to try to advance our knowledge by means of speculation, we must recognize that some forms of speculation are historically proven to be inefficacious and unproductive. Time to learn the lessons of the past, lest we be doomed to repeat them. Sometimes, "we don't know yet" is the best answer, since it leaves room for inquiry. It is not enough to sling mystical words around as if they have some correlation to reality, when they cannot even be defined such that we can see the correlations. It can be difficult to embrace "I don't know," but it, nevertheless, must be done sometimes. |
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- dglas (In the hell of 1000 unresolved subplots...)
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The Presupposition of Intrinsic Evil
+ A Self-Justificatory Framework
= The "Heart of Darkness"
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 04/07/2009 : 03:36:08 [Permalink]
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The vaguer the concept of God, the better it fits the natural world we live in. A perfect fit comes when God is defined so as to be completely meaningless.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 04/07/2009 : 08:04:06 [Permalink]
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I think that you could summarize your idea as that of a God hidden behind the singularity event, that would set things in motion and not intervene afterwards, already predicting, presumably, how the future events are going to unfold.
It is not that different (at least as far as cosmology and evolution is concerned) from the view of the Catholic church. And, certainly, it has the incredible advantage to not be contradicted by virtually every scientific knowledge acquired in the last couple of centuries, like Creationism is.
But, as people have mentioned, there are a few problems with this theory.
-) This idea is not falsifiable. Even if it were false, there is no possible test we could do to prove it false. Hence, it can not be evaluated by the scientific method and it will never be a scientific theory.
-) This idea is undistinguishable from a universe that sprung through purely natural means, which would be a more parsimonious explanation.
-) More philosophically, it would imply a God that knew right from the start of all the genocides and suffering to come and did nothing to stop or alleviate them.
-) The motivation of this God are also mysterious. What were his goals in creating the universe? The universe itself certainly does not seem to show any purpose.
-) Ok, so now that you have solve the question: 'Where does the universe come from' (God), can you start working on 'Where does God come from'?
In summary, it is an interesting concept. One that have little value as far as Science is concerned but that is intriguing as far as Religion and philosophy are concerned. Just promise us that you are not going to use that as the basis for a new Religion... :p
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Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Zebra
Skeptic Friend
USA
354 Posts |
Posted - 04/07/2009 : 08:04:54 [Permalink]
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HalfMooner took the words out of my fingers. I was going to ask arPos for a definition of god.
arPos wrote: | second off I will explain that I accept proven laws of nature fully as these are in effect the laws of god. |
Just checking: if you thought the "proven laws of nature" weren't the laws of god, would you not accept them? |
I think, you know, freedom means freedom for everyone* -Dick Cheney
*some restrictions may apply |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 04/07/2009 : 08:55:51 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Simon
I think that you could summarize your idea as that of a God hidden behind the singularity event, that would set things in motion and not intervene afterwards, already predicting, presumably, how the future events are going to unfold. |
The concept of a god who sets everything in motion and then is completely hands-off is Deism. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 04/07/2009 : 09:16:50 [Permalink]
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More generally, our knowledge of nature and the acceptance of what science currently, and need I say, tentatively tells us, and an individuals belief in a creator are not mutually exclusive.
Science describes the natural world. The mechanisms that drive evolution does not require a creator. So the choice of believing that a creator exists is a personal one and outside of what science can tell us.
Evolution happens and therefor a creator doesn't exist is the false dichotomy that drives many creationists to reject science itself. Those are the creationists who are a big fat pain in the ass, and demonstrably wrong in their conclusions. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 04/07/2009 : 09:50:39 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Simon
I think that you could summarize your idea as that of a God hidden behind the singularity event, that would set things in motion and not intervene afterwards, already predicting, presumably, how the future events are going to unfold. |
The concept of a god who sets everything in motion and then is completely hands-off is Deism.
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Indeed, you are right. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Created evolution?
