43 replies to this topic

[Dorho]

Atheists can have a non-theistic, non-judeo-christian position on 'creation'.

Theists can believe in evolution as a consistent and proper explanation of Genesis.

Atheist creationists? There must be very few of them.

I think that the broadening of our horizons through several scientific revolutions like the Copernican revolution, Lyell's theory of the vast age of Earth, Wegener's theory of plate tectonics, Einstein's theory of relativity, Fred Hoyle's theory of stellar evolution, and of course the recent neurochemical and neurobiological breakthroughs, have substantially altered the way we think of human's position in the universe. Creationism is pretty much the only human centric view left of the several historical beliefs that supported christianity through the ages and I think therefore it is very important to most christians in some way or another. While the majority of Christians around the world are probably not young earth creationists, they still have some kind of human centric view of the history of the universe.

[niner]

Atheists can have a non-theistic, non-judeo-christian position on 'creation'.

I am an atheist, and I have a position on 'creation'. My position is that it is nonsense. Can you find us an example of an atheist who is not mentally ill or simply ignorant, yet contends that life came about as Creationists claim? I bet you can't.

There are lots and lots of theists who consider evolution to be the way in which God worked her majik. That's cool with me, if it makes them feel better. At least they aren't actively spreading abject stupidity.

[Connor MacLeod]

...and as pointed out already, the difference in mean IQs of christians and non-believers is not statistically significant even to start with.

Has anyone seen the journal article yet (if so, could someone kindly provide a link.) Without looking at their methods its going to be very difficult to determine the validity of their conclusions. It seems to me that any study like this is going to be complicated by lots of confounding factors, etc. Maybe a study of twins would be more enlightening.

Edited by Connor MacLeod, 28 February 2010 - 12:28 AM.

[DukeNukem]

I tend to think its likely that animals do evolve into others, however, to play the devils advocate here, it seems that the case can be made that it seems rather natural for animals to evolve amongst their kind, like you could get a humming bird or an ostrich out of a chicken, a Chihuahua or a Great Dane out of a Labrador, but Im not sure if there are any cases that show the transition from one kind to another. Can you name one? Maybe there are, I havent seen any in all the books and videos and lectures I read about this but there could be, Im just saying.

These questions reveal a very typical, but fundamental misunderstanding of evolution as a whole.

I strongly suggest reading, as a good primer on the subject, The Greatest Show on Earth. I've found that this book is written at a beginner's level, yet explains all of the essential concepts really well:
http://en.wikipedia....e_for_Evolution

Edited by DukeNukem, 28 February 2010 - 12:42 AM.

[Shepard]

Evolution does not require belief, only observation.

The theory of evolution via natural selection does not illuminate the history of the world for us. It gives us tools to understand processes that can produce complicateness from simpleness.

Occam's Razor, really.

Edited by Shepard, 28 February 2010 - 01:04 AM.

[brokenportal]

I tend to think its likely that animals do evolve into others, however, to play the devils advocate here, it seems that the case can be made that it seems rather natural for animals to evolve amongst their kind, like you could get a humming bird or an ostrich out of a chicken, a Chihuahua or a Great Dane out of a Labrador, but Im not sure if there are any cases that show the transition from one kind to another. Can you name one? Maybe there are, I havent seen any in all the books and videos and lectures I read about this but there could be, Im just saying.

These questions reveal a very typical, but fundamental misunderstanding of evolution as a whole.

I strongly suggest reading, as a good primer on the subject, The Greatest Show on Earth. I've found that this book is written at a beginner's level, yet explains all of the essential concepts really well:
http://en.wikipedia....e_for_Evolution

Well, I don't need to be primed, because Ive gone over it hundreds of times through tons of sources. Ive seen the points, the connections, the refutations, Ive seen it go back and forth and back and forth dozens of times, round and round with good points on both sides. Its been a while though, many of those details allude me these days. I remember this rebuttal here though being typical of the misunderstanding of those points though. Im not saying your wrong, but it seems that it can be harder to pin down a true picture of what is going on than many people think.

[DukeNukem]

With regards to evolution, my stance is simple: Not believing it is not understanding it. It really is that black and white.

[niner]

With regards to evolution, my stance is simple: Not believing it is not understanding it. It really is that black and white.

I gotta agree with Duke on this. Evolution isn't something that you need to "believe". It is just a fact. It's more than just "a" fact; it's billions of facts, billions of observations, that all support a coherent framework. Creationism is the sort of thing that requires belief, because it has no facts backing it up. It is a fairy tale. They aren't comparable choices. The only "controversy" is in the minds of people who don't know the facts, or don't want them to be known.

[niner]

I'm moving this thread to the Religion Forum where it belongs.

[Dorho]

I tend to think its likely that animals do evolve into others, however, to play the devils advocate here, it seems that the case can be made that it seems rather natural for animals to evolve amongst their kind, like you could get a humming bird or an ostrich out of a chicken, a Chihuahua or a Great Dane out of a Labrador, but Im not sure if there are any cases that show the transition from one kind to another. Can you name one? Maybe there are, I havent seen any in all the books and videos and lectures I read about this but there could be, Im just saying.

These questions reveal a very typical, but fundamental misunderstanding of evolution as a whole.

I strongly suggest reading, as a good primer on the subject, The Greatest Show on Earth. I've found that this book is written at a beginner's level, yet explains all of the essential concepts really well:
http://en.wikipedia....e_for_Evolution

I hope I don't come off as argumentative for the sake of argumentation, but I'd like to share my view that as good as Dawkins is in explaining things clearly and concisely, his books often lack in observations as well as explanations of their meaning, both quality and quantity wise, leaving the layman often in the impression that evolution is merely a collection of eloquent just-so-stories. Dawkins seems to recycle the same simple and sometimes irrelevant evidence, and his rhetorics of comparing creationists to holocaust deniers hurt his case more than anything. I add that I have not read "The Greatest Show On Earth" but the criticism I described is very similar to the criticism I have read of his latest.

A somewhat similar book that is a bit more harder to read for the layman but also more rewarding, is Ernst Mayr's "What Evolution Is" (2002). Mayr (1904-2005) was the last of the great old-school Indiana Jones biologists and I also suggest reading about some of his crazy adventures as an explorer in uncharted territories.

I also recommend reading two books that are easy to grasp but more confined in subject: "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" by Sean B. Carroll and "The Third Chimpanzee" by Jared Diamond (1991).

Edited by Dorho, 28 February 2010 - 06:02 AM.

[Dorho]

I tend to think its likely that animals do evolve into others, however, to play the devils advocate here, it seems that the case can be made that it seems rather natural for animals to evolve amongst their kind, like you could get a humming bird or an ostrich out of a chicken, a Chihuahua or a Great Dane out of a Labrador, but Im not sure if there are any cases that show the transition from one kind to another. Can you name one? Maybe there are, I havent seen any in all the books and videos and lectures I read about this but there could be, Im just saying.

These questions reveal a very typical, but fundamental misunderstanding of evolution as a whole.

I'll add that the one key thing I didn't explain in my message about taxons is that the speciation and subsequent evolution that leads to different "kinds" in millions of years, always starts very simply from two very similar animal populations that are not as specialized as species living today. For example, no one suggests that the divergence that happened in the lineage leading to chimps and humans about six million years ago went as the usual creationist misunderstanding would have you understand: a chimp on the branch of a tree giving birth to a human who was unable to climb in trees and so had to go to the savannah in search of food.

The fossils show that the ape species living six million years ago were neither chimps nor humans but small bipedal apes and at first the lineage leading to chimps differed from the lineage leading to humans probably only in the area where they lived. The knuckle walking of apes is evolved from bipedal locomotion (apes are still able to walk bipedally though) and the lineage leading to humans continued walking bipedally but started evolving larger brains. A key stage in human evolution is Homo ergaster which is hypothesized, based on nerve holes in the skull, to not have been able to control their speech as well as modern humans but that probably walked and ran as well as modern humans. Homo ergaster (Turkana boy): http://en.wikipedia....iki/Turkana_Boy

If we go a lot more time backwards to see how the lineage of vertebrates started out, it didn't come out magically from some choral or arthropod but from a primitive type of chordata which then evolved into jawless fish and then into jawed fish. There are actually still some chordata species that diverged from the vertebrate lineage about 500 million years ago and that resemble a lot of those primitive chordatas and they are called lancelets, from the subphylum Cephalochordata. There are also some jawless fish species living today such as lampreys.

Lancelets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancelet
Lampreys: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamprey

Edited by Dorho, 28 February 2010 - 07:06 AM.

[Forever21]

Atheists can have a non-theistic, non-judeo-christian position on 'creation'.

I am an atheist, and I have a position on 'creation'. My position is that it is nonsense. Can you find us an example of an atheist who is not mentally ill or simply ignorant, yet contends that life came about as Creationists claim? I bet you can't.

There are lots and lots of theists who consider evolution to be the way in which God worked her majik. That's cool with me, if it makes them feel better. At least they aren't actively spreading abject stupidity.

No, not as Creationist's claim. Definitely not.

What I said was, "Atheists can have a non-theistic, non-judeo-christian position on 'creation'".

[Forever21]

Atheists can have a non-theistic, non-judeo-christian position on 'creation'.

Theists can believe in evolution as a consistent and proper explanation of Genesis.

So I think the creation-evolution issue is a weak argument for both sides.

Christianity is false, not because of creation, but because Newsflash: There is no God.

there is a god read the bible without all the anger its a playbook not a religion

As if reading the bible is going to lead you to a clear conclusion. Which translation? Which interpretation should we believe in? Christians are divided on what to believe the bible says. I choose to believe the interpretation that there is no God (Isaiah 45:2-6) and that man evolved, not created. (Genesis 1:1)

I'm using the "Peter, I smell bacon in your sandwich translation of the Bible."

[mikeb80]

I am a Christian, even if full of doubts and someway skeptical.

I blame all the uber-conservative views, like the creationism. We are not in the Middle Age... and to use the Bible as a science book is just insane.


But I don't see a real conflict between the struggle for a significant life extension and the belief in God. The purpose of anti-aging research is not to replace God... but to improve the quality and the duration of our lives. Nothing metaphysical.

Death will still exist (every day each of us can die in dozens of ways)... and no one will be able to take back who is perished in some accident where the body was completely destroyed... like a plane crash, a fire or a nuclear war.


This is my idea... Heaven can wait... at least for a bit.

IF there is an afterlife (like I really hope), 100, 200 or 500 years don't make a big difference, from the point of view of God.
The time scale of the universe is very long... BILLIONS of years.

But it makes an HUGE difference on the individual side.
Because every decade added to our life gives to everyone more time to grow spiritually, explore, feel, think, love.

And I am sure that it's VERY compassionate and VERY rational to fight the horrible collection of diseases going under the name of "aging".

Religious people (not just Christians) believe that the body is a temple of the soul... so they should welcome and support a scientific progress that allows to rebuild and regenerate this "temple" and offers to them more time to reach important and noble achievements.

Some further reflections...

It's well known that humans in a short life can make many mistakes (if you prefer "sins"), and often the cause is the will/anxiety to get everything (money, success, love, celebrity) in the fastest way possible. Hurry is a big enemy of perfection and tends to make us selfish and greedy.

A very long life probably could bring wisdom and mental maturity to everyone.
People could have more time to redeem themselves and being altruistic.